摘要： This paper introduces a method of nearest neighbor phase space reconstruction based on symbolic dynamics to study the causality between urbanization and economic growth at different regional levels in Shandong Province, and finds that there is the strong positive relationship between urbanization and economic growth in Shandong Province, indicating that the development of urbanization can drive the economic growth. Then, according to the results of correlation analysis and the principle of “deleting strong and reserving weak”, the paper selects the explanatory variable and explained variable to explore the hidden causal mechanisms that drive the development of urbanization in Shandong Province. The results show that: 1) the pattern causality between the explanatory variable and the explained variable is dominated by dark causality at the provincial level; 2) the pattern causality between the explanatory variable and the explained variable is dominated by dark causality at the Jinan economic circles and the Lunan economic circles, but the positive causality is dominated at the Jiaodong economic circles; 3) the types of causality between the same evaluation index and PU in different regions are different, and furthermore the degrees of positive, negative and dark causality are different at two levels and three regions. The conclusion shows that although there is an obvious positive interaction between urbanization and economic growth, the influences of many factors are neither positive nor negative causality, but dark causality. This study provides important support for accurately grasping the driving mechanism of urbanization development and economic growth.