[Objective] This paper studies the evolution of land use efficiency of 282 prefecture-level cities in China from 2000 to 2015 in order to provide a reference for the optimization of resource allocation and the continuous improvement of land use efficiency.[Methods] The VRS-DEA model and GIS spatial analysis method were used to study the evolution characteristics and its influential factors of land use efficiency in 282 prefecture-level cities.[Results] ① The land use efficiency of Chinese cities was at a low level. Among them, the eastern city had the highest efficiency, the western city took the second place, and the central city had the lowest efficiency. The larger of the city, the higher of the efficiency and the faster of the growth rate was. ② The land use efficiency was caused by pure technical and scale efficiency, pure technical efficiency contributed more than the scale efficiency. Eastern cities and high-grade cities had more advantages of pure technical efficiency. ③ Influencing factors of land use efficiency were changed from the built area and the excessive investment of the number of employees in the tertiary industry into the investment in fixed assets and the excessive investment of the number of employees in the secondary industry. At the same time, the impact of the insufficient output value-added of the secondary industry was significantly greater than that of the tertiary industry.[Conclusion] Different solutions need to be used to improve the land use efficiency in different regions and cities at different scales, for example, strictly control the scale of megacities and mega cities, control the scale of large cities in a targeted manner, and increase the investment of pure technical efficiency in medium-sized cities and small cities.