The impact of social and institutional changes on land resource use is an important component of the driving force of land use/cover changes. This paper primarily studies the characteristics and impacts of social and institutional changes on the use of land resources in China since the 1950s, which have played an important role in land use and land cover changes, but have not been studied enough by Chinese researchers in this field. Through discussion of the relation between social institution changes, changes of land resource management institutions and their impact on the changes of land resources, we identify and discuss the close connection between macro social ideology, institution and policy changes, and land use/cover changes in the context of China over the last 50 years, and establish the explanation and framework to illustrate the relationships and the phenomena.