The status of land use/land cover in the source regions of the Yangtze River was studied by using the techniques of remote sensing and the geographical information system based on the information resources of TM images in 2005 and relief maps. The results show that the grassland area was 8 377 079.3 hm2, occupying 58.9% of the total source area, in which the high coverage grassland, moderate coverage grassland and low coverage grassland occupied 10.28%, 21.36%, 27.23% of the total source area, respectively; the unused land area was 4 595 112.1 hm2, occupying 32.3% of total area, in which sand land, gobi desert, saline land, marshland, bare land, bare rock and cold desert occupied 3.66%, 5.80%, 0.25%, 4.19%, 2.24%, 6.28%, 9.88%, respectively; the water area, forestry land, farmland, residential land occupied 7.2%, 1.6%, 0.01%, 0.004% of the total area, respectively. At last, the reasons for this status was also analyzed.