Terrestrial carbon cycle is an important aspect of global carbon cycles and related to a diverse of research disciplines. In this paper we briefly review several main aspects of carbon cycling focusing on their research contents and advances. These aspects are source and sink of carbon element, “missing sink” problem, net primary production (NPP), soil respiration, CO 2 fertilization effect, carbon stocks in ecosystem at present and at Last Glacial Maximum, “deconvolution” method, and climate effect on net carbon fluxes between land ecosystem and atmosphere. We summarize the merits and shortness of different research methods, and make some comments on the currently researching results and their developing directions.