Abstract: It is obvious that the situation of rural human settlements is deteriorating. Therefore, it is an imperative task for governments of all levels to improve the rural human settlements, and build an agreeable place for living meeting the pressing need of the vast rural residents. In this paper, the theoretical analysis framework of rural human settlements has been established from the perspective of farmers, and the rural living environment is divided into two parts:the hard environment of rural living and the soft environment of rural living. Then based on the field investigation in Beijing and Hebei province, this paper analyzes the condition of rural living environment via structural equation model. The results indicate that the farmers' evaluation of rural residential environment quality is generally poor, and that the improvement of rural settlement environment is pressing. During the process of optimizing rural settlement environment system, the hard environment of rural living optimization should focus on the environmental conditions in rural areas, while the soft environment of rural living should focus on the social services. The future work of the rural residential environment optimization should have emphases, and the quality of rural human settlements should be improved in proper order.