The middle and lower reaches of Shule River was chosen as the study area.Remote sensing images in 1975, 2000 and 2010 were used to extractland use/cover information. Then the landscape change tendency, change area, change rate and specific conversion type werestudied quantitatively through the transfermatrix calculation. Through extracting characteristics of landscape patternindexes, the regional pattern of landscape ecology and landscape heterogeneity was analyzed. Finally, the driving factors for landscape pattern change were investigated. Results indicated that the proportions of cultivated land and construction land expanded sharply by 19.6% and 73.3%, respectively over the past 35 years. Construction land was the highest in dynamic degree,reaching 2.11% and was followed by cultivated land. The conversions of gobiand grassland into cultivated land,and the conversion of gobi into grassland and construction land were the main trends of the land use variation. Totally, landscape density increased, the largest path index decreased, the weight area index increased and the shape of landscape became irregularity. The degree of diversity landscape and fragmentation increasing also showed that the land uses became more complex．Driving force analysis showed that the population growth and economic development were the most direct driving forces for land use/cover changes in study area.