The world's population is becoming urbanized as people migrate to the cities. It is expected that most urban growth will occur in less developed countries during the next decades. One of the major effects of rapid urban growth is "urban sprawl" that increases traffic, saps local resources and destroys open space. Urban sprawl is responsible for changes in the physical environment, and the form as well as spatial organization of cities. Urban ecosystems not only provide recreational and aesthetic values, but tangible benefits of clean air and water, conservation and reuse of natural resources, increased biodiversity, and other products that increase the livability of our communities. Creating sustainable urban ecosystems involves optimizing landscape constructions based on considerations that are ecological and social. The main goal of urban planning is to make all amenities and comforts available to the public without imposing many negative effects on society and environment, referred to as "sustainable growth". Therefore, urban ecological landscape is drawing wide attention. Developing ecological landscapes will be capable of contributing to the advancement of technological and scientific solutions that can address the grand challenges of urbanization. However, there are lots of problems in existing urban ecological projects owing to lack of uniform guidelines and evaluation indicators of ecological landscapes. Therefore, it is important to build evaluation indicators used to guide urban ecological landscape construction. This paper reviews the progresses of ecological landscape research and summarizes the essential characteristics of urban ecological landscapes. Ecological landscape can be defined as an anthropogenic or managed landscape with deliberate form of human intervention, and with careful protection to improve natural conditions or repair environmentally destructive impacts. Among various features of urban ecological landscapes in related references, three basic merits are summarized in this study including sustainability, ecological-economic benefits, and harmoniousness. According to reviews on related references, we formulate eight guidelines and corresponding evaluation indicators of urban landscape design. Eight guidelines include natural grades of landscapes, species diversity and security, rainwater collection and management, contamination effluent and treatment, green materials and products, microclimate regulation, visual enjoyment of landscapes, and spiritual and cultural values. Moreover, we collect 170 questionnaires concerning people's understanding and preferences of urban ecological landscapes. After analyzing these questionnaires, we analyzed the status and issues of urban ecological landscape constructions. The weight values of evaluation indicators are also quantified using public questionnaire surveys. This study could provide some insights to integrate architecture, engineering and planning perspectives to focus on adaptive, ecological and resilient urban planning and design.