Abstract: The rates of GDP growth, population growth and cultivated land area decrease were selected as the three major factors for analyzing in this paper. The correlations of cultivated land area decrease, economic development and population growth in Shandong province from 1978 to 2000 were discussed in details as the major subject. In addition, this paper discussed region difference by analyzing the data of every city. It was found that in the past 20s years of the China’s reform and opening to the outside world, the phenomena of cultivated land area decrease of cultivated land area was impacted directly by the investment in fixed assets. The conclusion is economic growth was the most important factor to drive cultivated land area decrease in Shandong province.