Taking Yancheng coastal wetlands as an example,we analyzed the spatial and temporal evolution characteristics of coastal wetlands landscape about two periods based on the years of 1987,1997 and 2007 landscape images.We used two landscape ecology indicators: transition probability and centroid,with the technologies of RS and GIS.The results indicated that both the landscape structure and centroid changed from 1987 to 2007.Firstly,the percentage of natural wetland dropped from 42.45% to 21.44%,but the artificial wetland rose from 18.19% to 58.88%.During the former decade,45.40% of the natural wetlands were transferred to the artificial wetlands or the non-wetland;while in the later decade,additional 37.91% of the natural wetlands were transformed,leading to an increased and then decreased landscape heterogeneity over the time.Secondly,both the natural and the artificial Landscape centroid shifted to the southeast from 1987 to 2007.From 1987 to 1997,the artificial wetland centroid moved 58.17 km and the natural wetland centroid did 6.15 km,while from 1997 to 2007,they shifted additional 12.67 and 7.15 km,respectively.