Landscape ecology has experienced tremendous progress internationally since the mid 1990s. The hotspots for landscape ecological research locate mainly in North America, Europe, Oceania (Australia), and East Asia (China). These indicate high acceptance and wide applicability of landscape ecology at the global scale. The dominant research contents of contemporary landscape ecology are landscape assessment/evaluation, landscape planning, and landscape modeling, followed by landscape conservation and ecological restoration, and discussions on the theoretical issues of landscape ecology. With the advancement of landscape ecology, interdisciplinary research has been improved, which facilitates the establishment and development of new growth points in landscape ecology including fluvial landscape ecology, landscape genetics, multifunctional landscape studies, integrative landscape modeling, and landscape sustainability science. In globalizing context, great progress has also been achieved on landscape ecological research in China. International colleague has come to notice and review the development of landscape ecology in China via international journals indicating the coming of an international status for Chinese landscape ecology. However, there are both challenges and opportunities for further development of landscape ecology in China. Chinese scientists need to pay attention to the global pursuit for sustainable development and sustainability science, scan widely the landscape ecology frontiers, and serve for domestic needs in local, national and international affairs on nature-society interactions and sustainable development. Holistic and integrative landscape ecology needs to be established and improved with multi-scale and multidimensional researches on landscape pattern-ecological process interactions as the core themes with equal attention to regional differentiation and cross regional integration. The biophysical and socioeconomic background in China should be fully considered in landscape ecological research. Much importance, therefore, need to be attached on human-disturbed and human-dominated landscapes.