Beijing is one of the ancient cities in China. In history, land use and land cover in its territory changed with intensities of human activities. The most striking land use change is the expansion of urbanized areas no matter fast or slow in different periods. Its historical development process could be roughly divided into two periods in this paper, one is from Liao Dynasty when Beijing initiatively became the capital to 1911 when traditional China ended. Another period is from 1911 to the present, particularly from 1949 to 1997 on which the discussion on land use and cover change is focused. The period of 1949 to 1997 could be divided into two sub-periods, i e , planned economy period from 1949 to 1978, and the institutional and market oriented transition period from 1978 to the present. Through the brief discussion, we can see that land use/land cover change has been accelerated in the past 100 years, especially in the past 50 years because of the changes of social ideologies, policies, population growth, technological improvements and the strengthening of economic power. More detailed and quantitative studies of the relationship between those social-human factors and the urbanization as well the land use/land cover change need further studies in the future. The consequences of land use and cover change in Beijing, the future development trends of the city and some related issues are also discussed in the paper.