Abstract: Because of the arising of the modern remote sensing and space techniques, the scientific research of remote sensing techniques for land survey in USA has been rapidly developing since 1970's. The presence of the USGS land use and land cover classification system for use with remote sensor data is one of the most important events of USA land survey during this period.At the same time studies in applications of remote sensed images from various platforms and sensors to land surveys have achieved great successes, while great advances in the techniques of acquiring and processing images have been made. Diverse image-analysis techniques are actively developing, including manual interpretation techniques aided with photo-electronic devices and computer-assisted analysis techniques. After landsat 4 MSS becomes a forma] operational sensor, quite a bit of attention is being paid to the application potential of the new type sensed data TM. The preliminary experiments have shown that TM data are very efficient means of surveying agriculture and urban land use. Experts say that the space shuttle flight will be one of the most favorable options of Earth remote sensing for users in the late 1980's as well as in the 1990's.In relation to the practice in China, finally, this paper makes some suggestions in view of the special situation of remote sensing research in land survey in China.