[Objective] The characteristics of cultivated land changes around large cities were studied to provide a key basis for realizing the sustainable utilization of cultivated land resources and high-quality development of national space in the concentrated expansion areas of cities. [Methods] Three typical large cities in the upper, middle, and lower sections of the Yangtze River economic belt (Chengdu, Wuhan and Shanghai City) were selected as examples. Based on a land-use transfer matrix and a framework for analyzing the intensity of land-use change, it elaborated on the intensity and stability characteristics of cultivated land change around the three big cities over a long period and explored the synergistic mechanism between urban sprawl and the protection of high-quality cultivated land. [Results] ① The total area of cultivated land around the three major cities decreased continuously between 1990 and 2020, with the loss of high-quality cultivated land and the pressure to replenish cultivated land, and the loss of cultivated land in the middle of the period was the most serious. Wuhan City achieved a balance between occupation and compensation for cultivated land during the late stage. ② The big cities in the Yangtze River economic belt showed rapid land-use changes between 1990 and 2020, and only Chengdu City showed slow changes in the early period. ③ The transfer out of cultivated land and the transfer in of construction land around the big cities in the Yangtze River economic belt had been active between 1990 and 2020, whereas the transfer in of cultivated land had remained stable; the transfer out of construction land in Chengdu and Wuhan City began to be active after 2010. ④ The conversion process of cultivated land to construction land around the big cities in the Yangtze River economic belt between 1990 and 2020 showed a stable tendency systematic conversion pattern, and the transfer in of construction land mainly originated from cultivated land. [Conclusion] In the future, it will be necessary to scientifically formulate a rigid and elastic combination of cultivated land control strategies, realize the multifunctional protection of cultivated land from the perspective of regional ecological security, and establish a diversified cultivated land protection incentive system around the large cities of the Yangtze River economic belt.