Historical land use and cover change have been one of the hot topics of international concerns. Reconstruction and research of historical land use and cover change can  understand the process of past changes in landscape environments of land surface, and  have an important guiding role in the current land use patterns and in predicting the future land use and cover change. Based on the main data sources used and data process metheds and study ideas, the research status of historical land use change are reviewed both at home and abroad in terms of historical documents, historical maps, inspection and investigation reports, model simulation and integrated multisource data and multidisciplinary approaches. Then, the advantages and disadvantages and uncertainties of the various methods used to carry out the research of historical land use change are discussed and analyzed according to the characteristics of different data sources and methods: ①We have wide range of historical documents and huge quantity  of information, but there are a lot of noise and omissions, and lack of visual spatial information; ②Historical maps can provide a relatively intuitive spatial location information, but the mapping technology was poor and the land use categories were coarse in historical period; ③Past inspection and investigation records with a smaller spatial and temporal scales are fairly standard, but they are difficult to meet the needs of the earlier period; ④Using the models to implement the simulation in different spatial and temporal scales is relatively easy, but more input data are needed. Finally, the integrated multisource data and multidisciplinary approach are considered as the only way to understand the process of historical land use change essentially and completely, and it will be the main ideas to study  the historical land use change in the future.