[Objective] In recent years

land use of silver beach of Beihai City had experienced great changes and the subsequent significant degradation of ecological environment. Therefore

the land use evolution and its impact factors were urgently needed to be understood to provide an importantly scientific reference for future sustainable development and management.[Methods] The remote-sensing images of Landsat were adopted to analyze the land use evolution and to discuss its impact factors in silver beach of Beihai.[Results] In the years of 1979-2013

the areas of construction land and artificial wetland were considerably increased and were mainly transformed from cultivated land and forest land. The areas of cultivated land and forest land were substantially reduced accordingly. The areas of grassland

water area and intertidal zone had no great variation. Land use intensity was consistently increased. Before 2000

land use was diversified and after that it markedly reduced. Driving forces of land use change include not only climatic factors as air temperature

typhoon and tide

but also human activity factors as urbanization

sea reclamation

fishing

tourism and planning management.[Conclusion] During the past 35 years

the land use of silver beach of Beihai City presented trends of simplification

slowdown but intensified and fragmental developed evolution

which was coincided with the enhancement in vulnerability of regional ecosystem. It is urgently needed to probe the interacting mechanism among the above multiple factors and to quantify the respective contribution of them to land use evolution.