Abstract:China established its first nature reserve in 1956. After a long period of stagnancy in 1960s and 1970s, the number of nature reserves in China started to boom in 1980s. China had established 1 551 nature reserves by the end of 2002, the total area of those reserves was 1 414 866 km~2, which covered 14.7% of the land territory of China. All nature reserves in China are strictly protected area as defined in the Nature Reserve Management Regulation of the People‘s Republic of China. After comparing the ratio ...