The analytic hierarchy process is used to construct an evaluation index system for the quality of international trade development, and the data envelopment method (DEA) and the total factor productivity (TFP) index based on the input-output analysis perspective are used to measure the efficiency of urban foreign investment use and urban transportation efficiency, and further the entropy method is adopted to measure the quality of the international trade development of China’s urban agglomerations. On this basis, GIS spatial trend surface analysis and spatial evolution pattern analysis are used to study the evolution of international trade development of China’s 19 urban agglomerations, and explore different international trade development paths and spatial evolution trends of urban agglomerations in east, middle, west and northeast regions. The Yangtze River Delta urban agglomeration is used as a key research object to observe the evolution of international trade development over the years. The study finds that the efficiency of foreign capital use, total factor productivity, and the quality of international trade development of urban agglomerations all show obvious spatial structure characteristics of "high in the east and low in the west". Among them, the scale and efficiency of foreign capital use and the cluster effect of international trade in the eastern urban agglomeration are particularly leading, the Yangtze River Delta urban agglomeration is a vivid epitome of the level of international trade development in the eastern urban agglomeration; the central urban agglomeration has a higher total factor productivity of international trade, but the quality of international trade development within the urban agglomeration is quite different; in the western urban agglomeration, the provincial capital, central municipality has great cluster effect advantages, but the quality of international trade development within the urban agglomeration is severely polarized; among the urban agglomerations in the northeast, the international trade development quality of the central and southern Liaoning urban agglomeration is better than that of the Harbin-Changchun urban agglomeration, but the overall urban agglomeration in the eastern region scale efficiency is low. The article puts forward policy recommendations to improve the quality of international trade development in urban agglomerations in the eastern, central, western, and northeastern regions.