Abstract: With the deep development of tourism, the concepts and theories of place are more and more concerned by scholars, and the problems arising from local participation in tourism activities and the distribution of benefits has also been paid more attention by public. The rural area as a form of place has great significance in China, rural area’s placeness is the most important attraction for development of tourism. However, in the context of globalization, the placeness of rural area is gradually fading, and even been commercialized as products are being sold. Therefore, calling attention to the placeness of rural tourism is very necessary, especially in today's China. In order to interpret the placeness of rural tourism development process and analyze its evolution mechanism, this paper based on humanistic geography theory, stakeholders’ theory, community participation theory, selects Hongkeng Village as a case to conduct an empirical study from the local residents’ perspective. This paper also makes up for deficiencies in domestic researches which most of them only from tourist perspective. In this study, the results can be concluded as follows: ①The placeness of Hongkeng Village is reflected in three aspects: physical form-Tulou, internal culture-Hakkas’ folk culture, living environment-original ecological rural human settlements, its formation and change accord with “inheritance- accumulation-interference” mechanism; ②Tourism development brings positive and negative effects to the local area, which negative effects include two aspects: the plight of living and protection and the villagers’ irregular ways to make a profit. Economy, institution and culture are the three main influencing factors, each of them affect local residents through interest, game and inner motivation driven, thus bring significant influence to placeness; ③Local residents have the dual identities: they are both subjects and objects of placeness. On one hand, as a part of placeness, residents are the inheritors and participants of local tourism development; on the other hand, the economic, institutional and cultural factors have impacts on placeness all through the residents. Thus, the local residents play a key role in the development of rural tourism, and it also gives a good research perspective to study on the intersection of placeness and tourism issues. At last, based on the above analysis, this paper put forward some countermeasures on strengthening community participation, reforming government management and the suggestions of tourism planning for the tourism development of Hongkeng village.