[Objective] To show present situation, progress and future research trend of land ecological research in China.[Methods] Based on CNKI database, this paper used the methods of bibliometrics and content analysis, papers of Chinese land ecological research from 1992 to 2015 were analyzed.[Results] (1) The amount of land ecological literatures showed a trend of steadily increasing year by year. Especially after 2004, the number of literatures showed a sharp growth and most of the papers(76%) had got the national scientific funds support; (2) Scientific institutions and higher educational schools were amassed in the land research, among which, the Chinese Academy of Sciences ranks first; (3) Topics focused on land ecological evaluation, land ecological value research and land ecological restoration and reconstruction. Land ecological security evaluation is a hot spot in the present. Improved topsis method, entropy weight method, gray model method increased gradually. Researches of natural area were dominated by the topics of mining area.[Conclusion] Land ecological research has become the focus of land science and ecological science, and has obtained enhanced support from state and government. In the future, method innovation and the basic theory research need to be strengthened.