Obtaining the spatial-temporal distribution of crops is of great significance for the study of regional food security,climate change,terrestrial carbon and nitrogen cycling and water resources utilization. Based on countylevel crop statistics and other ancillary information in North China,spatial distribution of maize in the major maizegrowing areas was modeled within 5' * 5' grid cells for the period 19802010 by using a cross-entropy-based spatial allocation model (Spatial Production Allocation Model for China,SPAM-China). With the aid of the SPOT / VGT NDVI ten-day composed time-series data collected from April 2000 to October 2010,we built classification rules to identify the main maize types,including spring maize and summer maize. Maize planting areas were further classified into single spring maize area,spring and summer maize hybrid area and single summer maize area. On this basis,spatial transition of maize types were investigated from both maize sown acreage. The results showed that: (1) Maize planting area increased significantly (3.6 * 10~6 hm~2) and distributed mainly at central and southern in North China from 1980 to2000; (2) From 2000 to 2010,spring maize area increased by about 1.36 million hm~2,accounting for 17% to 27% of the total maize area; Meanwhile,summer maize area also increased about 0.93 million hm~2 in the south part of North China,accounting for 83% to 73% of the total maize area; (3) Increased spring maize and decreased summer maize were mainly converted from the previous summer maize in the spring and summer maize hybrid area,which 92% increase in spring maize area and 76% reduction in summer maize area occurred in this type of area. It was inferred that single-cropping system for spring maize was taking place previously double cropping system (winter wheat and summer maize) in north and middle part of North China.