The paper divided the history of China’s industry layout into three stages：the inland scattered distribution stage（1949-1975），the partial coast centralized distribution stage（1976-1997）and the regional coordinated development stage（since 1998）. After 60 years of development，China has been full access to the middle stage of industrialization. The heavy-duty features of industry structure are very prominent，and major industrial products experienced abnormal rapid expansion. As a result，the leading position of heavy-chemical industries in national economy was further enhanced. As far as the spatial pattern is concerned，in the 1990s，the heavy-chemical industries were mainly concentrated in the Northeast and North China，while the scale of the southeast coast and the central and western regions was very small，then the degree of industrial agglomeration was high. Since 2000，driven by various interests，all provinces and municipalities had been doing their best to launch heavy chemical projects，and the heavy chemical industry rapidly spread to the whole country，showing the trend of sprawl. Disorder spatial organization，coupled with absence of environmental protection，made ecological problems emerging，and capacity for regional sustainable development was difficult to guarantee. Lack of overall space development strategy，to the interest separation and imperfect market mechanism are mail reasons for the sprawl trend of heavy-chemical industry in China，while short-term behavior and corporate pursuit profit are the deep-seated reasons for industrial sprawl.