Abstract: The research on land use and land cover change is a core for studies on the global changes. Also the research of spatial-temporal features of land use/land cover change is significantly important for better understanding land use/land cover change and environmental management for sustainable development. In order to study the spatial-temporal changes of land use and land cover, the technologies of remote sensing and geographical information system were used to analyze the spatial dynamical features and temporal dynamical features of land use in China. The mathematical methodology for study on land use change was explored and developed. This research focuses on the dynamical analysis of spatial-temporal features of land use and land cover change of China in recent five years, such as land use types, land use degree, plantation status, city expansion, and so on. The results are: the cultivated land, water area, built-up or non-arable land area are increasing and forestland and grassland keep decreasing in the five years. The change of land cover types is not obvious in the corresponding period. The area-change of cultivated land has taken place mostly in the middle and eastern China. However, the area-change of forestland and grassland and unused land has mainly taken place in the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, the Inner-Mongolia Autonomous Region and Heilongjiang Province in China.

Key words: remote sensing, geographical information system, land use, spatial-temporal feature