The expansion of urban settlement is driving land-use change, both now and in the future. This urban expansion is mainly determined by strong economic development and increased urbanization. Urban expansion plays an important role in human land-use. The degree of land development was proposed as a new indicator to measure the scale of land-use where construction was occurring. An overview of research was presented with the following aspects:land capacity,previous research on the expansion of land required for development, regulation of land-use zoning and development rights and optimal allocation of land. Finally, the comprehensive evaluation on the maximum capacity of construction land was proposed to the future direction of land development research.% 随着经济的发展，城镇化的推进，建设用地的空间扩展日益成为现在乃至将来土地利用变化的主要特征。文章提出了表征区域建设用地合理规模的“土地开发度”，论述其概念和内涵，并从土地承载力、建设用地扩张、土地开发调控、土地优化配置等方面综述了国内外相关的研究理论、研究内容和研究方法，最后提出了要加强区域建设用地开发的最大容量的综合评估的研究展望。
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