Abstract: Resourcebased cities, which developed on the basis of resources exploitation, are one principal type of cities in China. This paper discusses the shortage of assessing ecological economic system of resourcebased city by emergy and currency, and then introduces the theory of emergy founded by H.T.Odum, the main steps and indices of the methods. At last, taking Tongchuan city as an example, whose ecological economic system is analyzed and evaluated. The result shows: During 1949 and 2000, Tongchuan have contributed wealth worthy of 254.1 billion Yuan; the primary driving forces of the system is local nonrenewable resources, the other includes the resources and products from outside region and local renewable resources; The emergy dollar ratio is decreasing, while the emergy density is increasing, but both are still at a less developed level; Stress on the environment is getting greater and greater, which are blocking the sustainable development; the ratio of emitted waste to GDP is decreasing, which leads to the improvement of environment.

Key words: resource based city, eco-economic system, emergy, emergy analysis