The current characteristic town is a space carrier with multiple connotations. The characteristic towns in the eastern developed areas and the surrounding areas of big cities are the new function spillover nodes of cities，and the characteristic towns in relatively remote areas are thought to be helpful to the local urbanization of farmers. At the same time，the characteristic towns are also used to promote reform and innovation，guide the supply-side structural reform，and become a new position of private capital profit. This paper divides the characteristic towns into three types：tourism type，innovative industry type and traditional industry type. At present，there are some problems，such as violating the objective law of industrial cultivation，positioning identical，paying too much attention to external form，excessive emphasis on tourism development，and risk of real estate. Therefore，we should stick to the following core strategies：adhere to the market as the main body to the allocation of resources，put emphasis on industry characteristics，different functions together and generate overflowing benefit，pay attention to the quality of the space environment，ecological environment conservation，deepen reform and innovation.