Abstract: Taking the Minqin oasis as an example, the socioeconomic driving force model for Minqin land desertification was established. First, the three-period desertification index and its change rate were established, belonging to 5 different regions at Minqin county during the periods of 1988～1997. Second, the correlation analysis was conducted to discover the relationship between desertification index and its change rate with socio economic factors and their change rates, then stepwise multi-variables regression method was adopted to and the linear equation of those variables. According to the equation, the causes and results were analyzed. On the pasture region and the Changning & Huanhe River irrigation agriculture region which was newly explored, their regional and desertification indexes mainly depend on natural conditions because of the relatively less influence of people, but their change rates of land desertification index are affected by economical conditions. On the pasture region, the relationship between the change rate of land desertification index and the change rate of sheep numbers per hectare is linear, the higher change rate of sheep numbers per hectare, the higher change rate of land desertification. For Changning & Huanhe River irrigation agriculture region, the relationship between the change rate of land desertification index and the population density is linear too. For the zones with long agriculture development history, food-economic planting structure, has impacts on the regional land desertification. When the regional land desertification become less, the planting area of the economic crop will rise. On the opposite, when the regional land desertification deteriorates, the planting area of food crop will arise through more land exploited, which induces more land desertification.