Abstract: Sustainable development is a hot issue in contemporary period.It is an important issue, and needs to bestudied further. Since the concept of sustainable development is put forward, many kinds of index systems, which measure the level of regional development, have been provided. But they have some flaws. In the late 1990 s, ecological footprint theory, used to deal with a certain area 's development conditions, was provIdea" ltmeasures the development level from a new aspect, comes from the knowledge that people 's consumption can be transferred into biological productive land which produces all the resources and assilatso a ue w ashts gfonred by human.
This paper introduces the theory of ecological footprint. By taking Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region as acase study, its development situation in 1999 is assessed by using ecological footprint theory. 'The results showthat the per capicta deficit of ecological footprint in Xinjiang was-0.8863 hm² in 1999, and the development at present is disadvant ageous for achieving sustainable development At last, briet comment about the tnery o ecological footprint is put forw ard.

Key words: Ecological footprint, sust ainable development, Xinjiang