Abstract: 【Objective】As China’s basic regional unit characterized with regional, spatial and administrational independence, assessments of county’s (county-level region’s) sustainable development is a matter of importance. 【Method】The paper took Aluke’rqin Banner of Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region as a studied example and assessed its developmental history with time-series data from 1982 to 2003, by applying Ecological Footprint (EF) Model which is a natural capital accounting in biophysical units and a useful indicator for measuring the pressure imposed by humanity on natural capital. 【Result】The calculated results showed that: the EF per person increased at a speed of 6.01% per year from 1982 to 2003, from 1.19ghm2 in 1982 to 4.05ghm2 in 2003; the county faced the ecological deficit of 1.47ghm2 in 2003, but in 1982 there was an ecological reserve of 0.58 ghm2; also there existed structural asymmetric between demand for and supply of bio-productive areas; and ecological footprints per 104yuan (GDP) had no significant change from 1982 to 2003, which was 20.6ghm2 in 2003 and also higher than that average value (EF per 104yuan GDP in 1999) of China, Western China and Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, etc.. 【Conclusion】Then conclusion was drawn as follows: human activities in Aluke’rqin Banner had exceeded the biosphere capacity; the county had suffered from ecological overshoot and severe depletion of natural resources. Obviously the way of development of Aluke’rqin Banner was unsustainable.

Key words: County-level region, Assessment of sustainable development, Ecological footprint, Aluke’rqin Banner