Abstract: Wetland park has become an important part of wetland conservation system in China, providing various ecological functions. We analyzed the current status, geographical distribution pattern and development trend of national wetland parks in China using GIS 10.0 and contagion index. By the end of 2017, there were 898 national wetland parks in China, within which 80% were related with river and lake. The area of individual park was generally less than 50 km². Most of those parks were located around farmlands and towns. The geographical distribution of all national wetland parks and the formally approved ones was highly concentrated, with a contagion index of 0.31 and 0.48, respectively. The national wetland parks were concentratedly distributed in eastern coastal and western regions, but were dispersed in central China. The highdensity hotspots of national wetland parks were in centralsouthern Shandong, Yangtze River delta, and northern Hunansoutheastern Hubei. The development of national wetland parks in China could be divided into three periods since 2005, namely exploration stage (2005-2007), stable stage (2008-2010), and rapid construction stage (2011-2017). In the future, we should pay more attention to optimizing the layout of national wetland parks and focus on the conservation of marshes and coastal wetlands, the YunnanGuizhou plateau, and arid and semiarid northwest China. Meanwhile, the area of individual national wetland park should be large enough.