Regional ecology has developed rapidly since 1980 and already become a principal branch of ecology. This article summarizes the international origin, development and research hotspots of regional ecology, compares the differences between domestic and foreign regional ecology research, and provides enlightenment to the development of domestic regional ecology. The analysis shows that international regional ecology hotspots mainly focus on biodiversity protection, the impact of regional climate change, ecosystem services, urban ecology, regional ecological restoration and sustainable development. Due to the difference of national conditions and progress of discipline development, there are differences between domestic and foreign regional ecological study in terms of concerns, ideas and methods. Domestic regional ecology is affected by the late start of discipline, the low quality, quantity and utilization of relevant data and the shallow research on methods and models. Future research should strengthen the learning of theories and methods based on deep utilization of remote sensing data, and focus on how climate change affects ecological processes, optimization of ecological models, assessment and pricing of national ecosystem services, regional ecological security and regional sustainable development planning.