Abstract: The rapid expansion of urban land is a  serious problem that need to be solved. Using the panel data of 30 provincial capital cities in China from 2000 to 2014, this paper tested the relationship between industrial development, intensive land use and urban land expansion at the national and regional levels, and analyzed the mediating function of intensive land use. Major conclusions can be drawn as follows: 1) At the national level, the increase of the tertiary industry scale and the upgrade of industrial structure inhibit the expansion of urban land, and the intensive land use plays partial mediating effect, and its contribution to the total effect is 10.3% and 12.6% respectively. 2) At the regional level, the increase of the tertiary industry scale and the upgrade of industrial structure has an indirect negative impact on the land expansion of the eastern cities by increasing the level of intensive land use; the increase of the secondary industry size has a direct effect on the urban land expansion of the central cities. 3) This study reveals the impact of different types of industrial development on urban land expansion in different regions and its path among them, and proposes a series of policy recommendations, which has realistic guiding for controlling the toorapid expansion of urban land in China.