Abstract: Desertification is land degradation,which is composed of sandy desertification,water erosion and salinization.Among of those the sandy desertification is a main process of land degradation in the North of China.Based on brief review of the studies and results on the definition of desertification in China and foreign countries and according to our researches and combating practices on land degradation in the North of China,we think that the sandy desertification is land degradation characterized by wind erosion mainly resulted from the in-coordination between human impact and natural conditions in the arid,semiarid and some sub-humid regions.We also discuss the time,space,cause,landscape,trend and disaster during the process of sandy desertification.We distinguish desert and desertified land from formation and evolution in different time-space,causes,processes and utilization/combating,and note that desert was controlled by climatic changes and human activities should bear the responsibility for sandy desertification.

Key words: the North of China, sandy desertification, definition and connotation