Abstract: Taking Shenmu County in Shaanxi Province as an example, we analyzed the characteristics of its land use structure in 2012 based on related quantitative indices. The results indicated that: 1) Moderate and low-cover grassland was the main land use type for the county, and for each of its towns the landscape matrix was grassland. 2) The diversity index of land use was relative low, concentration index was high, combination types were few and the land use degree was low. Compared with southeastern towns where hilly and gully area dominates, the northwestern towns which are characterized by sandy wind and grass shoal had higher diversity index of land use, lower level of intensive land utilization,better overall land function and more combination types. The significance of location of each land use type of the towns had a great relationship with exploitation of mineral resources, scenery area, topography and terrain, and vegetation flora. 3) The characteristics of spatial structure of land use of Shenmu County show that, for the agricultural land, residential areas and industrial land which were more intensively impacted by human activities, the smaller the fractal dimension, the larger the shape index, and the simpler the shapes. The results of our study show that the land use of Shenmu needs to increase the effective vegetation cover, further perform the "grain for green"project, strengthen the exploitation of unutilized land and the reclamation of mining land, and improve the ecological environment system for ensuring the sustainable development of land use.