Abstract:Landscape change and its driving forces are always considered one of the major issues in landscape ecology. Daxing’anling is one of the most important timber supply area in China. Since late 1960, Forest landscapes have been changed greatly due to harvesting and ecological functions have degraded substantially. We investigated the landscape pattern of Huzhong Forest Bureau, one part of Daxing’anling using TM data and forest stand map. The paper aims at exploring how and why the landscape changed from 1989 to 2000. The results show that main landscape types including coniferous forest, broad_leaved forests and coniferous-broadleaved forests cover more than 90% of the total area. The other 8 landscape types cover the rest areas and they are grasslands,fire blank, cutting area, wetland and roads. Change in the coniferous was great, decreasing from 4762% of total landscape in 1989 to 3149% in 2000. In contrast, coniferous-broadleaved forest decreased from 3921% in 1989 to 53.37% in 2000. This trend suggests dominant landscape cover converted from large areas of continuous coniferous forests to large area of coniferous-broadleaved forests. Meanwhile, forest ages, timber volumes and canopy closure changed greatly. From 1989 to 2000, the landscapes dominated by mature and old-growth, large timber volume and high canopy forests turned into landscapes dominated by mid-aged, small timber volume and low canopy forests. Landscapes have been transformed from a high quality homogeneous state to a low quality homogeneous state. Both nature and human influenced landscapes in the study area. We use historical data to compare several driving forces including timber harvest, fire disturbance, afforestation, and residential build-up by the extent, intensity and frequency. We found that forest harvesting is the main driving force for the landscapes change in Huzhong Forestry Bureau from 1989 to 2000. This study revealed the relationships among landscape, ecological processes and human activities. It also revealed the intensities, directions and rates of landscape change caused by different driving forces. Additionally, this study can provide scientific basis for forest management at landscapes scales.