The South China Sea and its coastal zone are one of the most active and high potential areas for economic development in the Asia-Pacific region. Affected by global changes and human activities, the resources and environment in the South China Sea region were changing drastically, imposing new pressures on the society, economy, ecology and environment. This article reviewed related geographical research of coast zone, marine and coral reef resources from the perspective of geospatial information. It examined various current works of remote sensing monitoring on the shoreline, the geographical difference analysis of oil-gas reserves and fishery catch, and remote sensing monitoring on coral reef landform and coral bleaching. this article also discussed the existing research results and shortcomings and analyzed the possible focus of future research based on development trends. The results show that the geospatial research on resources and environment of the South China Sea had made many achievements in the large scale rapid monitoring and geographical differentiation of resources so far. Meanwhile, research on the internal mechanism of resource distribution, as well as the environmental impact of resource development, is insufficient. Studies that can be expected to achieve breakthroughs in the future include: multi-scale analysis of spatiotemporal feature of the region and their effects, differentiation and pattern analysis of inter-regional natural and social development, improvement of dynamic monitoring accuracy and timeliness of the South China Sea resources based on the integration multiple-source data, and the comprehensive effects of marine ecology and environment in the process of resource change.