Delineation and management of ecological redline zones in important eco-functional areas and ecological sensitive/fragile areas are necessary for maintaining regional ecological integrity and for sustaining ecosystem functions and services. Ecological redline zones are expected to help to solve the problems of environmental degradation and natural resource depletion and to alleviate the adverse effects of natural disasters. In spite of the many practices of planning of ecological redline zones, delineation and management of ecological redline zones are still far from mature. Therefore, ecological theories and technologies for delineation and management of ecological redline zones are urgently needed. In this paper, the concept and connotation of an ecological redline zone are addressed, emphasizing the roles of a landscape or a regional spatial security pattern and necessity of regional ecological services in delineation of ecological redline zones. The review and discussion on the advancement of ecological redline research at home and abroad are then presented, highlighting the reference values of foreign researches in the title of ecosystem-based management, marine spatial planning, site selection for nature reserves, and protection level classification of nature reserves for ecological redline research at home. We address the problems with delineation of ecological redline zones including simple adoption of the current zonation map without adequate consideration of the issue of scale, inadequate consideration of the spatial process and connections in the landscape or regional context, the lack of ecosystem process simulation based human impact assessment and sea-land overall planning. According to our understanding of ecological redline zones, we elaborate the ecological theories and technologies such as ecological-suitability analysis, disturbance theory, ecosystem-based management, landscape/regional security pattern, sea-land overall planning, the driver-pressure-state-impact-response (DPSIR) framework, and their implications for delineation and management of ecological redline zones. Subsequently, we propose a technology chart that is based on an ecological security pattern and on urgency of regional ecological service requirements for delineation of ecological redline zones, thus showing how to apply these theories and technologies to delineation and management of ecological redline zones. Finally, we discuss possible future hot spots for ecological redline research and provide some suggestions on how to improve research level of ecological redline in China. The theories and technologies, especially the flow chart for delineation and management of ecological redline zones, are expected to serve as valuable references for future studies related to ecological redline zones.