Abstract: In this paper, the basic data of various development zones in China are collected and sorted out systematically. The development process of China's development zones is mainly divided into 4 stages - preliminary phases, rapid developing phase, standard developing phase and innovative phase. Using the standard deviation ellipse method and kernel density estimation method, the evolution of spatial-temporal patterns of china's development zones is analyzed and explored. The results show that: 1) China's development zones experienced the distribution from agglomeration to disperse, from unbalanced to balanced; furthermore, the center of the development zones moved from east to west; 2) Eastern China has more development zones comparing that in the Western China, and most development zones are located in urban agglomerations. Also the provincial density distribution in Shanghai, Tianjin and Jiangsu is the highest. All kinds of development zones distribute in accordance with their specific natures and present a different distribution; and 3) In terms of the industrial distribution characteristics of China's development zones, the development zones are mainly dominated by manufacturing industries, and there are obvious spatial differences among different types of industries. Based on the analysis results, we put forward some policy suggestions for the space optimization development of China development zone.

Key words: development zones, development phases, distribution characteristics, China