Human activities have become the major driver of global environmental change in the context of the Anthropocene, thus reasonably maintaining human socio-economic activities within the Earth's environmental boundaries is a prerequisite for achieving sustainable development. As global environmental boundaries, the planetary boundaries adhere to the Earth-system view and provide a new perspective for coordinating environmental sustainability assessments in different regions. In accordance with the planetary boundaries, this paper assesses the spatio-temporal patterns of provincial environmental sustainability in China, and discusses the socio-economic influencing factors of environmental sustainability based on the spatial econometric models. The results show that:(1) The unsustainability of carbon, nitrogen, and phosphorus emissions in Chinese provinces are generally higher in the north than that in the south, and the degrees of differentiation gradually increase over time. The proportions of unsustainable provinces for those environmental elements have exceeded 2/3. In the meantime, the overall sustainability of both water and land use in the southern region are higher than that in the northern region, and remain relatively stable. The proportions of sustainable provinces for both water and land have exceeded 3/4. (2) The spatio-temporal patterns of provincial environmental sustainability in China are jointly affected by factors including population, economy and technology, and there are certain synergistic effects between various types of environmental sustainability. Among them, all types of environmental sustainability are positively driven by the population size, while the sustainability of nitrogen, phosphorus, water, and land are negatively driven by agricultural activities. (3) The sustainability of carbon emission is mainly negatively driven by energy consumption intensity; the sustainability of phosphorus emission is negatively driven by the urbanization rate of the population; the sustainability of water is negatively driven by the proportion of secondary production. The study of environmental sustainability in accordance with the planetary boundaries can provide scientific references for the regions to rationally define and effectively implement global environmental sustainability responsibilities.