As the competent department of the State Council for plan, administration, protection and reasonable use of natural resources, including land resource, mine resource, and ocean resource.

Its main responsibilities include:

1, formulating related laws and regulations; announcing managing rules of land resource, mine resource, and ocean resource; according to administrative review formulating policy concerning plan, administration, protection and reasonable use of land resources, mine resource, and ocean resource; formulating technological standard, norm, and measures.

2, organizing comprehensive plan and other special plan of land utilization; participating in the check of city comprehensive plan approved by State Council; organizing investigation and evaluation of mine resource and ocean resource, and formulating plan of protection and reasonable use of mine resource and ocean resource, geographic reconnaissance, disaster prevention, and relics protection.

3, supervising the plan implementation of administrative departments; protecting legal rights of resource users according to law; mediating serious disputes and dealing with serious law violation case.

4, formulating policy concerning special protection of field and encouraging field reclamation; implementing using purposes of field; organizing basic field protection and directing supervision of unexploited field reclamation and cleanup, ensuring that the increase of field area is acceptable only.

5, formulating field record management measure, organizing field resource investigation, statistics, and dynamic inspection; directing field right confirmation, classification of rural and urban field record.

6, formulating management measure of the remise, lease, transfer, transaction, and government acquirement of land-use right; formulating directory of state owned land transfer and rural area land; directing move management of non-agricultural land.

7, direct basic land-value, demarcate land-value evaluation; checking the qualification of evaluation organization engaging land-evaluation, and affirming land-use right price; undertaking check and approval of all kinds of land requiring forwarding to State Council.

8, managing the approval registry and transfer registry of prospecting right and mining right according to law; examining and approving foreign cooperation area; managing mine resource reserve, geographical material collection; carrying out industrial management of geographical reconnaissance, checking institution qualification of geographical reconnaissance, managing geographical reconnaissance outcome.