This paper looked back and summarized the history of the vegetation geography development in China, and looked forward its future research tendencies from traditional vegetation geography to functional vegetation geography. As a science of studying the geographical distribution of vegetation, the China's vegetation geography underwent four phases closely related to the country's socioeconomic development. The first phase is an early stage of start-up before the establishment of the new China (1920s-1949). The main works were a small amount of investigations of plant geography and vegetation geography. The second phase is an initial stage of new growth after the buildup of new China and before the reform and open of the country (1949-1980). During this stage the traditional studies of vegetation geography were still the major contents. The third phase is a mid-term development after the reform and open to the eve of the rapid economic progress (1980-2000). In this stage ecologists focused on some new vegetation geographical research under the global climate change. The last phase is the recent stage of transformation and prolongation in an information era with steady development of the national economy (2000-present). China's vegetation geography came into a new stage of deep growth facing the worldwide environmental changes. During the nearly 100 years, we have gained fascinating achievements in six aspects:the comprehensive vegetation regionalization and ecological function division; revision of vegetation classification of the Chinese vegetation; compilation of vegetation map and vegegraphy of China; palaeovegetation geography; simulation, prediction and scenario analysis of vegetation pattern; and functional vegetation geography based on analyses of plant functional traits and ecological stoichiometry. Hereafter, more finer and deeper research in the following four aspects needs to be paid more attention:strengthening more detailed and elaborated studies on classic vegetation geography; compiling the next-generation vegetation atlas and vegegraphy of China; carrying out the intensive study of anthropogenic vegetation geography; enhancing the investigation of functional vegetation macro-geography taking the plant trait study as an opportunity; and launching the long-term study of functional vegetation geography along with phylogeography in ways of intersection and fusion.