Abstract: The river shoreline is of great significance to the biological habitat, regulation of rivers and flood storage and discharge. It is necessary to analyze the development suitability and potential of shoreline development, and explore the scientific classification methods and development thresholds according to the characteristics of river shoreline. This paper established an evaluation index system based on the vertical and horizontal spatial characteristics of river shoreline, and evaluated the development suitability using mathematical methods of multi-criteria and multi-objective. This paper took Yanzi River in Kang County as the research object. We divided the river shoreline into 8 kinds of development suitable function areas(protected area, reserved area, controlled industrial utilization shoreline, controlled livelihood use shoreline, controlled ecological utilization shoreline, developed industrial utilization shoreline, developed livelihood shoreline, and developed ecological shoreline), and studied the functional localization of development suitability and development thresholds. The results show that protected area and reserved area are unsuitable for development and construction, the thresholds of controlled utilization and developed utilization shorelines are 60%~70% and 70%~85% respectively, and with development potential of 40%~50% and 90%~100%. The research results can provide scientific basis for the development, refined management and the sustainable development and utilization of the river shoreline.