Abstract: Based on the analysis of the dramatic change of cultivated land during the last 55 years in Zhongxian County of Chongqing City, this paper mainly explores the situation and composition of increased and decreased cultivated land from 1996 to 2003. The key causes of cultivated land change are discussed and the countermeasures of cultivated land protection and development are proposed. The result shows that the adjustment of agricultural structure is the main cause of cultivated land loss, which accounts for 82.25% of the total amount of cultivated land loss; the land devoting to nonagricultural constructions and flooded by rising water of the Three Gorges reservoir area are the secondary causes, which respectively account for 4.32% and 13.22% of the total amount of cultivated land loss. Among the newly added structure of cultivated land, reclamation of abandoned land is the main source of cultivated land increase at present, and the adjustment of agricultural structure is the second, which respectively account for 71.92% and 21.88% of the total increased cultivated land. This paper puts therefore forward some key countermeasures for farmland protection such as strict control of farmland occupation for nonagricultural constructions, improvement of the relative economic benefits of cultivated land, strengthening the arrangement and restoration of cultivated land, optimizing the major synthetic regulation for the basic construction of irrigation and water conservancy and strict control of population quantity, and so on.

Key words: the Three Gorges reservoir area, Zhongxian County, cultivated land change