Land cover change (LCC)is an important part of global change study and sustainable development research.Accurately describing the process of land surface change at the national scale is a necessary step in the study of the relationship between man and nature.The analysis of land cover change of Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK),a hot developing country of concern to the international community,will be a key point to lay a foundation for the sustainable utilization of land resources and ecological environment protection in Northeast Asia and cross-boundary region of China.In this study,Landsat TM/OLI images of DPRK in 1990 and 2015 were used to extract the information of land cover by using object-based images analysis (OBIA)and some statistical data were used to analyze the driving forces of land use change in DPRK.The results showed that forestland (-4976.1 km~2)and cropland (+4821.5 km~2)were the most obviously changed land cover of DPRK in the 25 years.Wetland decreased by 212.2 km~2,while built-up land increased by 82.8 km~2.Among various land cover changes of DPRK,the expansion of cropland converted mainly from montane forest (94.6%)were essential and fast.The conversion between forestland and cropland significantly occured in sloping fields with relatively high elevations (100-1000 m)and intermediate slope gradients (8°-35°).In the meantime,the changed area of wetland and built-up land were mainly found at lower elevation(0-100 m and 0-200 m)areas which were nearly flat (0-8°).North Hwanghae,with a change rate of 17.3%,was the most obviously changed district,followed by South Pyongan.Land cover change of Ryanggang was least apparent with a change rate of 2.2%.DPRK has been suffering from the economic downturn and worsening natural environment since the 1990s,and its land cover changes were influenced mostly by human factors such as the growth of population,the deterioration of economic environment and the regulation of national macropolicy.