Abstract: With the structural transformation of the relationship among the government, villagers and social organizations in the protection and development of traditional villages in China, the public's awareness and appeal of participating in planning and decision-making become stronger. Community empowerment, as a new way to solve the dilemma of the protection and development of traditional villages, has been widely concerned by the researchers. Firstly, this paper summarizes the research progress of domestic scholars on the protection and development of traditional villages, and points out the deficiencies of the current protection and development work in the subject and theoretical methods. By discussing the relationship between community empowerment and the protection and development of traditional villages, the rationality of the community empowerment-based protection and development theory of traditional villages is proved. Furthermore, the existing community empowerment-based protection and development theory system of traditional villages is extended from the perspectives of community cultivation, traditional culture inheritance, local characteristics continuation, landscape environment governance and real estate construction, providing some experience for the current related work.