Access to land is the most pressing economic problem in rural Ethiopia. Available literature indicates that access to land is interlinked with rural poverty and nonfarm livelihoods. This dissertation tried to address the following fundamental research questions: How land policy has been influenced access to land? What are the different ways of access to land under the current land policy and what factors shape access to land? What are the profound effects of households' poverty in gaining or limiting access to land in Ethiopia? Does access to land contribute to make livelihood transition? This dissertation tried to answer these questions in the context of Ethiopia. The dissertation consist of three standalone papers. Chapter 1 gives an introduction and summary of the dissertation by highlighting the common themes of all the papers. Chapter 2 presents the first paper that review land policy and asses the prevailing means of access to land and pattern of landholding. Chapter 3 presents the second paper that examines the effect of rural poverty in gaining and limiting access to land. Chapter 4 gives the third paper that investigates the drivers of Households’ (HH) choices of livelihood strategies toward rural nonfarm livelihoods with particular emphasis on the effect of access to land of rural HH on the choices of livelihood strategies.