Seven Landsat TM images during 1979-2013, combined with a field survey, were used to establish a database of tidal marshes in the Yellow River Delta, to determine the characteristics of landscape pattern in tidal marshes and the impacts of natural and human factors thereon. The trends of landscape patterns in tidal marshes in the future 20 years were also forecast using a Markov model. Results showed that the tidal marsh areas generally decreased from 1050.28 to 575.39 km² with a decrement rate of 45.22% from 1979 to 2010, and increased to 596.17 km² during 2010 to 2013, with an increment rate of 0.36%. The main landscape pattern showed obvious zonal distribution characteristics from the land to sea, and the landscape types in a seaward direction were Phragmites australis marsh, Suaeda salsa-Tamarix chinensis-P. australis marsh, and S. salsa marsh and mudflat, respectively. In general, the areas of P. australis marsh decreased significantly, with a decrement rate of 79.68%, whereas those of salt-cultural-pond (SP) and resident district (RD) continued increasing during 1979-2013, and those of other landscape patterns showed varied fluctuations, decreasing overall. In the next 20 years, the areas of tidal marshes are predicted to show a decreasing trend, with a decrement rate of 6.60%. Particularly, the areas of P. australis marsh are predicted to decrease continuously and those of the SP and RD to increase continuously, whereas those of the other landscapes are predicted to show slight fluctuations. In this study, we found that, although the dual function of natural and human driving forces determined the dynamics of landscape patterns of tidal marshes during 1979-2013, the annual sediment load (x₁), regional GDP (x₂), and output of aquatic products (x₃) were more critical factors affecting the landscape patterns (y) of tidal marshes (y=733.192+35.317 x₁-0.005 x₂-4.085x₃, p=0.0001 < 0.05), which could explain 76.7% of the variations in tidal marshes over the past 30 years.