Abstract: With the unswervingly efforts during the‘Eleventh Five- Year Plan’period, the development of marine economy in China has achieved eye- catching progress while confronted great threats under the influence of nternational financial crises. To push the marine economy to a new level, it’s indispensable to research the role of marine culture in the marine economy development. This paper summarized the economic features of marine culture through literature review. Besides, the development of marine culture research of China and foreign countries was clarified through comparative study. With the combination of normative study and empirical analyses, the author established an argument that building sound marine culture with Chinesecharacteristic could help accumulate the culture capital which would benefit marine economy. Moreover, through establishing regression models by adopting culture substitute index, the effect of marine culture toward marine economy development was quantified. Eventually, the focus of building Chinese marine culture was raised.