Abstract: The integration of the Yangtze River Delta has started since 1980s. In the past four decades, it has gone through four stages, namely, planning coordination,elements cooperation,docking mechanism, and national strategy of integrated development with higher quality. The integration degree and level have been significantly improved, forming a good foundation for the national strategy to promote the coordinated development of provinces and cities.
However, there are still some problems in the integration of the Yangtze River Delta, such as administrative barriers, insufficient legal support, low marketization degree of cooperation mechanism, insufficient function of central city and the undeveloped regional spatial connections. When economy development has changed from high speed to high quality, the Yangtze River Delta should strive to be the pacesetters in the coordinated development of regional economy in China. Therefore, it is necessary to break the restriction of administrative division so as to establish national leading institutions and market-oriented cooperation system and build a new system of regional integration. The Bay Area should function as an important platform and carrier for regional development. Starting with the joint construction of national strategic projects, we should establish a new mechanism for jointly building industrial projects to share the benefits of fiscal and tax revenue, and promote the high-quality development of regional integration.

Key words: integration of the Yangtze River Delta, coordinated development among regions, high-quality development, national strategy