历史时期土地开垦变化过程的研究是历史时期土地利用和土地覆盖研究的重要内容，同时有利于预测未来土地利用和土地覆盖的发展趋势。本文在阅读了大量史籍及统计资料基础上利用数学方法重建了基于现代县级政区的安徽各县自明万历以来的垦殖率变化情况，得到了1582年、1647年、1683年、1878年、1935年、1985年、1998年及2011年8个时间断面的垦殖率，再现并分析了历史时期安徽地区垦殖率的空间变化过程及区域差异。结果表明安徽地区的垦殖率自北向南递减，存在特征较明显的“稳定区”（长江冲积平原及皖南山区）及“变化区”（淮北平原及江淮丘陵地区）。皖南及皖西地区进一步开垦的时间要早于皖西北地区。淮河平原过去一直是土地开垦的重点区域，但在上世纪80年代末已经达到开垦极限，皖中地区可能承接淮北平原而成为新的重点开垦区域。

The research of the process of historical land reclamation is the most important part of the research of historical land use and cover change and good for predicting the future development tendency of land use and cover change. This paper reconstructs the change of county level of Anhui province since Ming WanLi Dynasty based on reading a lot of historical books and statistical data. The reclamation rate of eight time sections has been obtained. They are the middle of Ming Dynasty, the beginning of Qing Dynasty, the early period of Qing dynasty, the latter period of Qing Dynasty, the late of the Republic of China，and1985，1998，2011. The history of the spacial change process and regional difference of reclamation rate in Anhui region has been reproduced and analyzed. Results show thatreclamation rate decrease progressively from north to south. There exist two special regions. One of them is stable region which include Yangtze River alluvial plain (the part of Anhui) and southern mountainous area in Anhui Province. The other one is movability area which include Huaibei plain and hilly region between Huaihe River and Yangtze River. The further reclamation in the west and south area of Anhui is earlier than the northwest area. The Huaibei plain once was the focus of the land reclamation but it had reached the reclamation limit in the late 1980s. The middle of Anhui area may undertake in Huaibei plain and become the new focus on land reclamation area.