The purpose of the paper is to explore the theoretic method for identifying and further treating the idle land in China.Methods of documentation and qualitative analysis were used.The results indicated that(1) the difficulties of identifying the idle land included that the unclear definition of starting point of being idle,the proper period of being idle,the constructed area and the invested money; (2) the difficulties of treating idle land included that the responsible subject was not clear,the scope and standard of the fine were not uniform,and the procedures of withdrawing idle land was not standardized; (3) the identification of idle land should follow the steps that categorizing idle land,defining the starting point and period of being idle,measuring the constructed area,and calculating the development investment amount;(4) it is important that we should not only focus on the treatment of existing idle land,but also actively prevent the potential idle land,and further strengthen the dynamic monitoring and regulation of idle land use.It was concluded that the results of this research could provide theoretic method and valuable reference for the treatment of existing idle land,so as to promote the effective use of idle land and the economical and intensive use of land resource.