Abstract:The rise of regional sustainable development studies in China is a kind of academic innovation at the background of the rapid development of global sustainability science,with the characteristic of focusing on exploring the regional sustainable development models in China.By taking a region as an open and dynamic system,the most attentive academic topics in the field of regional sustainable development studies include: to analyze a region’s adaptation capacity to economic globalization and global climatic change,to study the interrelationship among various regions and the coordination degree between continuous needs for development and constrains from resources and environment,and to explore the competitive power of regional economy driven by innovations of sciences and technology,system reform and culture.Then,regional sustainable development studies have their specific academic value to make up the weak aspect of the earth system science,which used to emphasize studies on the interrelationship among natural spheres and neglect studies on the interrelationship between the human sphere and the natural spheres.Regional sustainable development studies have made great contributions to promote the implementation of sustainable development strategy in China.For example,the following major research achievements including the consultation report on sustainable urbanization and the construction of transport infrastructure,major function oriented zoning,assessment on the carrying capacity of resources and environment in the disaster-stricken regions,etc.,have had great effects to change the central and local governments’ decision-making and behavior and thus the progress of China’s regional sustainable development.