The study on the land use/cover change is one of the frontiers and the hot spots in the global change research. By using the Landsat TM and ETM data which were acquired in 1989～1990,1995～1996 and 1999～2000 respectively, we analyzed the spatial-temporal characteristics of land use/cover changes in the Jianghan Plain at time scales of 10 years and 5 years. The result shows that the spatial-temporal characteristics of land-use change varied with the change of scales during this period of time. During this period of time,the cultivated land area decreased by nearly 5×10⁴ha², of which 67.83% occurred in the previous 5 years between 1989-1990 and 1995-1996. The built-up land and water area expanded with an increase of 1.56×10⁴ha² and 3.54×10⁴ha² respectively, and the expansion at the latter 5 years between 1995-1996 and 1999-2000 was only about 1/2 of the increase amount during the previous 5 years. Large-scale reclamation that was a popular method to get arable land before the 1980s has been limited. There are significant shifts among cultivated land, water bodies and built-up land. From 1990-2000, 76.47% of the lost arable land was converted to water bodies and 22.36% to built-up land. 78.93% of the increased built-up land was gotten at the expense of cultivated land, while 12.93% and 7.04% at the expense of woodland and water bodies respectively. The rate of land-use change in every county and city is different. Wuhan and Xiantao have gotten the greatest value of the dynamic degree of land-use change in all the administrative districts due to the relatively developed industry and economies and fast urbanization, which means that the land-use in these cities changed quickly. The slowest changed areas were Jianli,Songzi and Tianmen. On the whole, the land use changes from 1990-2000 in the study area have been driven by urbanization and industrialization, infrastructure and agricultural intensification. The rapid growth of population and economies play an important role in the land use changes, and the advances in techniques also give rise to the changes obviously. To a great extent, the policy on land use has a definitively influence on the land use changes of different scales. In view of the results mentioned above, some strategies and policies should be reoriented to attenuate the conflicts among the protection of cultivated land and ecosystems and social-economic needs for expansion of built-up land.