As the idea and theory of sustainable utilization of natural resources has developed over recent years, research on the classification and evaluation of the ecological services of ecological land have become increasingly more important. Meanwhile, ecological land conservation has become the focus of land use research and ecological construction. Along with other important ecosystem services, such as water conservation, soil conservation, wind sheltering, sand fixation, climate regulation, environment purification and biodiversity protection, ecological land is an indicator of the eco-environmental quality of a region. With rapid economic development and accelerating urban expansion in China, the demand for land has increased, causing the loss of large areas of ecological land or land with special ecological value, such as wetlands. Consequently, it will accelerate the situation of a fragile ecosystem, and result in many environmental problems. Therefore, in order to change the trend of ecological land loss caused by blind economic development, it is necessary to re-examine the concept and meaning of ecological land and study the rational allocation of the quantitative structure and spatial patterns of ecological land, which can maximize the ecological benefit of land resources. At present, ecological land has various meanings, and is not an independent land type in existing land classification. In this study, the formation and meaning of ecological land was reviewed, a classification system was proposed, and the status and change in trend were evaluated based on national land use survey data. The conclusions were as follows: (1) Major ecosystem services should be the basic principle used in the definition of ecological land at a regional scale, differing from other criteria, such as ecological elements or comprehensive ecological functions. (2) Based on major ecosystem services, ecological land can be classified into four types (wetland, forest, grassland, and other ecological land) and 19 sub-types. Among them, wetland, forest and grassland should be collectively referred to as fundamental ecological land and others as preserved. (3) The total area of ecological land in China was 7.64×10⁶ km² in 2008, which occupied about 80% of the entire land surface, with fundamental ecological land of 5.31×10⁶ km². Both the gross amount and per capita possession of fundamental ecological land were the same: descending from northwest to southeast in China. From 2002 to 2008 the area of ecological land and fundamental ecological land gradually reduced, with average annual reductions of 0.55×10⁴ km² and 0.18×10⁴ km², respectively. Among 356 prefecture-level cities in China, 104 increased and 251 decreased in terms of fundamental ecological land. In some regions in north and east China, the ecological security situation should not be ignored. In addition, the total amount of fundamental ecological land per capita showed the same spatial distribution characteristics with high levels in the northwest and low levels in the southeast, which correlated well with Hu's Line of population. The eco-security status in some regions was facing serious challenges. For example, the density of fundamental ecological land was lower than 0.4 in most areas of eastern North China and Northwest China, with the former caused by increased human development and construction activities, while the latter reflects the vulnerability of the local natural ecological environment background.