The statistic shows the total acreage of agricultural land in China in selected years from 1980 to 2024. In 2024, the acreage of agricultural land in China amounted to approximately *** million hectares.

Agricultural land (% of land area) in China was reported at 55.43 % in 2023, according to the World Bank collection of development indicators, compiled from officially recognized sources. China - Agricultural land (% of land area) - actual values, historical data, forecasts and projections were sourced from the World Bank on October of 2025.

Agricultural land (sq. km) in China was reported at 5204130 sq. Km in 2023, according to the World Bank collection of development indicators, compiled from officially recognized sources. China - Agricultural land (sq. km) - actual values, historical data, forecasts and projections were sourced from the World Bank on October of 2025.

The statistic shows the extent of farming acreage in China in 2023 by region. In 2023, the extent of farming acreage in Heilongjiang province in China amounted to around **** million hectares.

This statistic illustrates the area of agricultural land in China in 2017, by type. That year, the forest area in China amounted to approximately ***** million hectares, almost twice the size of the arable land.

Agricultural land area of China remained constant at 5,206,950 sq. km over the last 2 years. Agricultural land refers to the share of land area that is arable, under permanent crops, and under permanent pastures. Arable land includes land defined by the FAO as land under temporary crops (double-cropped areas are counted once), temporary meadows for mowing or for pasture, land under market or kitchen gardens, and land temporarily fallow. Land abandoned as a result of shifting cultivation is excluded. Land under permanent crops is land cultivated with crops that occupy the land for long periods and need not be replanted after each harvest, such as cocoa, coffee, and rubber. This category includes land under flowering shrubs, fruit trees, nut trees, and vines, but excludes land under trees grown for wood or timber. Permanent pasture is land used for five or more years for forage, including natural and cultivated crops.

This horizontal bar chart displays agricultural land (km²) by date using the aggregation sum in China. The data is filtered where the date is 2021. The data is about countries per year.

Abstract

The objective of the Second National Agricultural Census is to understand in an overall manner the basic situation of agriculture, rural areas and residents of the country in order to build up foundation for the study and foimulation of economic and social development planning and scientific decision-making and to provide statistic information service to agricultural producers and operators as well as the general public The objects of the Second National Agricultural Census are the following entities and households within the territory of the People's Republic of China:

(1) Rural household: it includes rural agricultural households (rural household agricultural holdings) and rural other households no matter whether the register identification of members of the household is local or not and whether is agricultural or not. Rural agricultural households refer to those households engaged in agriculture activities, including crop farming, forestry, animal husbandry, fishery/aquaculture and agricultural service in rural areas. Rural other households refer to those households inhibited in rural areas withou tengaging agricultural activities.

(2) Urban agricultural household (urban household agricultural holdings): it refers to those households engaged in agriculture activities, including crop farming, forestry, animal husbandry, fishery/aquaculture and agricultural service in urban areas.

(3) Non-household agricultural holding: it refers to legal entities, agricultural establishments of legal entities with multiple-establishments and unregistered entities that basically satisfied with the qualification of legal person, which are engaged in agriculture activities, including crop farming, forestry, animal husbandry, fishery/aquaculture and agricultural service except households. It includes not only enterprises, public service organization and cooperative of farmer households with agriculture as the major industry, but also agricultural establishments of agricultural production and operation affiliated to industrial and mining enterprises, government agencies, social groups and schools.

Geographic coverage

National coverage

Analysis unit

Households

Universe

The statistical unit of the AC 2006 was the agricultural holding, defined as the household or the entity in the non-household sector engaged in crop farming, animal husbandry, forestry, fishery and agricultural services on agricultural land, and that meet one of the criteria specified as a threshold (see section 7 below). The agricultural holdings were classified as: (a) household agricultural holdings or (b) non-household agricultural holdings, as identified by surveying the following entities and households within the territory of the People's Republic of China: (i) rural households;' (ii) urban agricultural households;2 and (iii) non-household agricultural holdings (agricultural establishments).

Kind of data

Census/enumeration data [cen]

Sampling procedure

(a) Demarcation of enumeration area

• Enumeration area is demarcated according with the area administered by villagers' committee as a unit. Each enumeration area is manned by at least one supervisor;

• Under the Enumeration area, sub-enumeration areas are established according with villagers' group in principle. If no villagers' group has been set up, or the villagers' group is excessively big or the boundary is not clearly defined, or the households of the same villagers' group are dispersed in over 5 clusters, clear geographic marks should be used to demarcate the sub-enumeration area. The size of sub-enumeration area and the number of enumerator is set for the completion of field enumeration in 10-15 days. Usually, the size of sub-enumeration area is 50 to 100 households. It could be 20-50 households in the area with less population density and difficulties in transportation. Each sub-enumeration area is manned by at least one enumerator.

(b) Frame At village level, the household list for rural residents was used as the census frame. For non-household holdings, administrative records for enterprises from government regulatory agencies were used as a reference for the census. The enumerators were required to identify each eligible enterprise and establishment in scope.

Mode of data collection

Face-to-face [f2f]

Research instrument

Four types of questionnaires were used in the AC 2006:

(i) questionnaires for households (which covered all households in rural areas and urban agricultural households) (ii) questionnaires for agricultural holdings in the non-household sector (three specific questionnaires for different types of units) (iii) village questionnaires (iv) township questionnaires (v) agricultural land questionnaires

The AC 2006 questionnaires covered all 16 core items recommended for the WCA 2010 round, namely;

0001 Identification and location of agricultural holding 0002+ Legal status of agricultural holder 0003 Sex of agricultural holder 0004 Age of agricultural holder 0005 Household size 0006 Main purpose of production of the holding 0007 Area of holding according to land use types 0008 Total area of holding 0009 Land tenure types on the holding 0010 Presence of irrigation on the holding 0011 Types of temporary crops on the holding 0012 Types of permanent crops on the holding and whether in compact plantation 0013 Number of animals on the holding for each livestock type 0014 Presence of aquaculture on the holding 0015+ Presence of forest and other wooded land on the holding 0016 Other economic production activities of the holding's enterprise

Cleaning operations

(a) DATA PROCESSING AND ARCHIVING A combination of different methods, such as manual data entry and scanning, was used for census data capture. The software used for data capture, processing, analysis and tabulations were aPRAS and SAS. Microdata were stored on the server.

(b) CENSUS DATA QUALITY After enumeration was completed, the ACO organized three-level data quality checks, including the PES of households, data verification on agricultural land parcels, and the proof for data processing. The PES of households consisted of 110 sample counties covering 330 census areas, and more than 20 000 households. It was conducted using a stratified two-stage sampling method. The census data were verified against the registration results of the AC.

Data appraisal

Scanning (OCR) was used for census data capture. Census results were disseminated and are accessible online.

Area under Land Survey: Land for Agriculture: Tibet data was reported at 87,230.233 ha th in 2017. This records a decrease from the previous number of 87,234.000 ha th for 2016. Area under Land Survey: Land for Agriculture: Tibet data is updated yearly, averaging 87,234.000 ha th from Dec 2003 (Median) to 2017, with 15 observations. The data reached an all-time high of 87,253.308 ha th in 2009 and a record low of 77,603.352 ha th in 2004. Area under Land Survey: Land for Agriculture: Tibet data remains active status in CEIC and is reported by Ministry of Natural Resources. The data is categorized under China Premium Database’s Land and Resources – Table CN.NLL: Area under Land Survey: Land for Agriculture.

Millets and rice were important for the demographic history of China. This review draws on current archaeobotanical evidence for rice and millets across China, Korea, eastern Russia, Taiwan, Mainland southeast Asia, and Japan, taking a critical approach to dating evidence, evidence for cultivation, and morphological domestication. There is no evidence to suggest that millets and rice were domesticated simultaneously within a single region. Instead, 5 regions of north China are candidates for independent early cultivation of millets that led to domestication, and 3 regions of the Yangtze basin are candidates for separate rice domestication trajectories. The integration of rice and millet into a single agricultural system took place ca. 4000bc, and after this the spread of agricultural systems and population growth are in evidence. The most striking evidence for agricultural dispersal and population growth took place between 3000 and 2500bc, which has implications for major language dispersals.

This statistic represents Chinese acquisitions of agricultural land abroad as of January 2016. China bought ******* hectares of agricultural land in Guyana during the period from 2003 to 2016.

This horizontal bar chart displays agricultural land (km²) by region using the aggregation sum in China. The data is about countries per year.

Area under Land Survey: Land for Agriculture: Anhui data was reported at 11,121.920 ha th in 2017. This records a decrease from the previous number of 11,137.333 ha th for 2016. Area under Land Survey: Land for Agriculture: Anhui data is updated yearly, averaging 11,193.300 ha th from Dec 2003 (Median) to 2017, with 15 observations. The data reached an all-time high of 11,246.647 ha th in 2009 and a record low of 11,121.920 ha th in 2017. Area under Land Survey: Land for Agriculture: Anhui data remains active status in CEIC and is reported by Ministry of Natural Resources. The data is categorized under China Premium Database’s Land and Resources – Table CN.NLL: Area under Land Survey: Land for Agriculture.

55.4 (%) in 2022. Agricultural land refers to the share of land area that is arable, under permanent crops, and under permanent pastures. Arable land includes land defined by the FAO as land under temporary crops (double-cropped areas are counted once), temporary meadows for mowing or for pasture, land under market or kitchen gardens, and land temporarily fallow. Land abandoned as a result of shifting cultivation is excluded. Land under permanent crops is land cultivated with crops that occupy the land for long periods and need not be replanted after each harvest, such as cocoa, coffee, and rubber. This category includes land under flowering shrubs, fruit trees, nut trees, and vines, but excludes land under trees grown for wood or timber. Permanent pasture is land used for five or more years for forage, including natural and cultivated crops.

This line chart displays agricultural land (km²) by date using the aggregation sum in China. The data is about countries per year.

Facility agricultural land is a component of other land, which is widely distributed throughout the country, and is of great significance for large-scale breeding production and rural revitalization. The spatial density distribution of facility agricultural land reflects the level of regional large-scale breeding and agricultural technology development, which can provide a reference basis for regional agricultural resource development and rural non-point source pollution prevention, and has reference value for strengthening the supervision of rural land resource utilization. This paper uses the 30 meter land use grid data of the 2020 National Land Change Survey, uses the kilometer grid production software, and calculates the grid space to obtain the data set of China's 1km grid facility agricultural land density in 2020. This data set can be used for research on rural revitalization planning, rural industry planning, agricultural non-point source pollution assessment, remote sensing sample library, etc.

Area under Land Survey: Land for Agriculture: Guangdong data was reported at 14,916.479 ha th in 2017. This records a decrease from the previous number of 14,945.800 ha th for 2016. Area under Land Survey: Land for Agriculture: Guangdong data is updated yearly, averaging 14,970.482 ha th from Dec 2003 (Median) to 2017, with 15 observations. The data reached an all-time high of 15,098.062 ha th in 2009 and a record low of 14,891.159 ha th in 2008. Area under Land Survey: Land for Agriculture: Guangdong data remains active status in CEIC and is reported by Ministry of Natural Resources. The data is categorized under China Premium Database’s Land and Resources – Table CN.NLL: Area under Land Survey: Land for Agriculture.

Area under Land Survey: Land for Agriculture: Sichuan data was reported at 42,133.168 ha th in 2017. This records a decrease from the previous number of 42,160.600 ha th for 2016. Area under Land Survey: Land for Agriculture: Sichuan data is updated yearly, averaging 42,300.434 ha th from Dec 2003 (Median) to 2017, with 15 observations. The data reached an all-time high of 42,437.064 ha th in 2003 and a record low of 42,133.168 ha th in 2017. Area under Land Survey: Land for Agriculture: Sichuan data remains active status in CEIC and is reported by Ministry of Natural Resources. The data is categorized under China Premium Database’s Land and Resources – Table CN.NLL: Area under Land Survey: Land for Agriculture.

The global food security landscape is increasingly precarious as climate change, geopolitical conflicts, and pandemics compound its complexity. Concurrently, rapid urbanization has precipitated widespread loss of agricultural land in the North China Plain, yet research on the spatiotemporal dynamics of this conversion process—and its specific impacts on agricultural production potential—remains limited. In this study, we employ multi-temporal land use data from the China Land Use/Cover Change (CNLUCC) dataset for the years 1980, 1990, 2000, 2010, and 2020, alongside 1980 agricultural production potential data, to examine land use changes in the North China Plain over the period 1980–2020. Our analysis centers on the pace and intensity of urban expansion within city boundaries, the consequent loss of agricultural land, and the resulting decline in agricultural production potential. Findings reveal that, during this period, agricultural land—the predominant land use type—has been increasingly converted to urban areas, directly accounting for a loss of 1.25 × 104 km2 of farmland, with approximately 78.91% of new urban developments established on former agricultural lands. Cities such as Beijing, Linyi, and Zhengzhou have experienced the most substantial direct losses of farmland. Moreover, the speed and intensity of urban expansion exhibit significant spatial variability, following a distinct “higher in the center, lower at the periphery” pattern in agricultural land consumption, alongside an overall upward trend in expansion intensity. Between 1980 and 2020, the region experienced an aggregate loss of 7.03 × 109 kg in food production, with spatial patterns indicating lower losses in the north and higher losses in the central and southern regions. Cities including Tangshan, Baoding, Beijing, and Zhumadian incurred the highest reductions in agricultural production potential, whereas cities such as Jiyuan and Chengde exhibited relatively lower losses. This study underscores the spatial disparities in agricultural land loss and production potential depletion driven by urban expansion in the North China Plain, offering critical insights for land use planning and the promotion of sustainable regional development.

The average for 2021 based on 193 countries was 245857 sq. km.. The highest value was in China: 5206950 sq. km. and the lowest value was in Bermuda: 3 sq. km.. The indicator is available from 1961 to 2021. Below is a chart for all countries where data are available.