Land, a critically important natural resource, supports human well-being. Ecological land is defined as the land with either important ecological functions or high ecological sensitivity. It links urban land use planning and ecological construction, and further guarantees urban economic development. Therefore, it is necessary to carry out the research on ecological land planning in order to establish sustainable landuse system and to improve the regional pattern for ecological security. Concepts, characters, main functions and planning methods of ecological land vary with the different research scales. This study analysed the concepts and planning methods based on two scales: the city territory at the meso-scale and the urban area at the micro-scale. Ecological land in urban areas mainly includes urban green land and water. And in city territory it includes much more diverse types of land such as natural reserves, forest, grassland, water body, water and traffic buffers, unused land and so forth. Ecological land plays different roles at the two scales. Its most important ecosystem services are recreation and culture, regulating services and disaster evacuation in urban areas, while in the city territory the services of climate regulating, waste treatment, soil and water conservation, erosion control, bio-diversity protection are paid more attention. In urban areas, the quantity of ecological land mostly depends on relevant laws, regulations and standards, such as "The Control Regulations Over City Green Line" and "The Control Regulations Over City Blue Line". In city territory, it could be planned by the following methods: fixing the proportion of ecological land with reference to other cities' experiences (analogy method), utilizing mathematical optimization models of landuse structures, and scenario analysis based on the comprehensive evaluation of ecological importance. In urban areas, the spatial arrangement of ecological land included 4 main steps. Step 1, important ecological sources were identified and surface ecological land was established; Step 2, linear ecological land was established based on water and traffic land buffers; Step 3, key nodes were extracted and thus point-shaped ecological land was identified; Step 4, all ecological land was classified. In the city territory, the spatial pattern of ecological land was arranged by more comprehensive methods. First, special ecological land was extracted, such as natural reserves, water body, water and traffic buffers. Second, a comprehensive evaluation of ecological importance was carried out, which included ecological function importance evaluation and ecological sensitivity evaluation. Third, ecological land was extracted by the application of ArcGIS. At last, the ecological land was classified according to ecological functions' relative importance. In accordance with the planning results and relevant policies, the suggestions for planning and management of different types of ecological land were proposed. Ecological land planning is a process involving systematicity and complexity of social, economic and ecological factors. The ultimate goal of it is to fix the character, the quantity and the spatial pattern of the ecological land. But so far, it is hard to implement it accurately. It will play an important role on the research of ecological land planning to combine the landuse structure optimization model with the spatial structure optimization model.