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To deeply understand the quantity, quality, spatial distribution characteristics and the representative of cultivated land of national standard farmland in western China at macro scale, it is very important to set up and improve the monitoring system of cultivated land quality in the whole country. This paper, based on the database of farmland classification and national standard farmland in western China (12 provinces, municipalities and autonomous regions), gives a analysis of the quantitative distribution characteristic of national standard farmland of the western region in gradation (quality) and on a secondary zone of the standard farming system. The paper then analyzes the spatial distribution features of standard farmland based on GIS and conducts inspection, definition and statistical tests for the representative of national standard farmland. Results show that: (1) In the view of quantitative distribution characteristics, national standard farmlands of the western China were distributed across all the gradations 4-15, but exhibited great differences in each gradation, such as more than half of them concentrated in 8-12 gradation. The distribution of national standard farmland in the 4, 5, 14, and 15 grades was less. Furthermore, national standard farmlands of the western China are unevenly distributed in the secondary zone and have not covered 28 secondary zones of the standard farming system. Therefore, there exists cultivated land but no national standard farmland in five secondary zones such as Daxing'an Mountains region and so on. (2) From the spatial distribution characteristics, national standard farmland is uniformly distributed on the whole, but there is a significant spatial difference and there exist excessive concentration phenomena in six secondary zones. Thus, the data presented suggest that we should adjust and optimize the monitoring sample plot layout of national standard farmland in western China, according to a comprehensive analysis of the testing results and the distribution characteristics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]