On the basis of Landsat MSSof 1970s and ETMimage of 1990s and by means of analysis and comparison as well as field inspection, the authors rapidly extracted the distributive information of four levels of soil desertification along the peripheral areas of Tarim basin. According to the available distributive information of four levels of soil deterioration in two periods, a map showing the gradual change of the extent and limits of soil desertification in the whole region was compiled, which objectively reflects the land deterioration in the past 30a and provides a remote sensing application example for the study of land deterioration in arid and semi-arid areas.