Abstract: The effective evaluation of realistic potential of land consolidation is an important step for successful implementation of land consolidation in rural residential areas in China. As a case of Wendeng county in Shandong Province, a comprehensive evaluation index system was established by the 14 indexes relating to natural conditions, social economy, regional land resource and utilization of homestead to calculate the realistic potential of land consolidation in rural residential areas, and the correction coefficient of realistic potential was analyzed using the analytic hierarchy process (AHP) method in the index system. The results showed that the correction coefficient of realistic potential of Wendeng county was 0.25～0.70, and the realistic potential of land consolidation in rural residential areas of Wendeng county was 883.67 hm2 in 2010 and 1072.74 hm2 in 2020, and the coefficient of increasing arable land was 10.10% in 2010 and 12.27% in 2020, respectively. It is necessary to arrange the land consolidation according to the realistic potential in different regions in order to improve the efficiency of land consolidation in rural residential areas.