As an important technique for securing the quantity，quality and ecosystem of cultivated land，the investigation and identification of new cultivated land has played an extremely essential role in the annual land alteration investigation and the supervision on new cultivated land of land consolidation projects in recent years. This paper is a systematic discussion on the requirements of the investigation and identification as well as the calculation methods. Besides，the sources，distribution and development trend of new cultivated land across China were analyzed according to the new cultivated land from 2012 to 2016. The following conclusions were drawn：the center of supplementary cultivated land has been shifted to the northwest of the country；the regional distribution of new paddy fields and irrigable land is relatively concentrated.