Abstract: The construction of digital government is an important initiative for advancing the modernization of the national governance system and governance capacity, and it plays a crucial role in promoting the high-quality integrated development of urban and rural areas. Based on panel data from 283 prefecture-level cities in China from 2010 to 2022, this study employs a projection tracing model optimized by an accelerated genetic algorithm to measure the level of urban-rural integration development. Taking the launch of the public data open platform as a quasi-natural experiment, it uses the staggered DID model to empirically examine the impact effect and mechanism of digital government construction. The results show that digital government construction significantly promotes urban-rural integration development, and this conclusion remains robust across multiple tests. Mechanism analysis indicates that digital government construction primarily facilitates integrated development by breaking down institutional barriers and promoting the flow of factors. Further analysis reveals that it contributes to the integration of urban and rural populations, spaces, and society, but to some extent, it inhibits urban-rural economic integration. Enhancing rural human capital can help mitigate this negative effect. Moreover, the promoting effect of digital government construction is more pronounced in provincial capital cities, digital industrial cluster cities, and non-transportation hub cities.