Abstract: Landuse cover and landscape patterns of 3 periods (1976, 1996, 2006) in Guinan County,Qinhai, Chinawere studied by using remote sensing and GIS techniques, aswell as the dynamics of landscape pattern. The resultswere as follows. (1) The grassland was the basic landscape background of the general terrain character of GuinanCounty, at the same time, lots of deserted landscape elements ( such as sandy land and drying ravines) weredistributed among grasslands. In 1970 s, the landscape disturbed by human being was relatively few, and up to1990 s, the landscape disturbed by human being was increased. (2) In 1976, significant differences in dominancewere found among patch types, landscape fragmentation value was small, and landscape diversification was simp le.After 1996, there were obvious change in the pattern of patch and the landscape became comp licated. (3) In thelast 30 years, the transformation speed of landscape elements ( including grassland, crop land, forest land, building land and unused land) to other landscape elements disp layed a accelerating state. During 1976—1996, a vast areaof grasslands was reclaimed into cultivated land. During 1996—2006, the phenomena to p rotect and to destroyecological environment existed simultaneously. Moreover, the unused land that transformed to other landscapeelements was small. Hence, to control the ecological environment of Guinan County comp rehensively would be along way. ( 4) The forecasted results on landscape pattern of Guinan County in 2016 indicated that the area ofgrassland, forest land and water area would be increased and the area of cultivated land and unused land would bedecreased, so the ecological environment of Guinan County would become better slowly.