Agricultural land use and its dynamics have attracted much attention from researchers due to their ecological and socio-economic implications for agricultural sustainability. Several international programs such as the Land-Use and Land-Cover Change (LUCC) and the Global Land Project (GLP) have promoted the emergence of Land System Sciences. Based on the latest progress in Land System Science, this review paper provides a definition of the Agricultural Land System (ALS) and conceptualizes a framework for the ALS studies relating to global change, food security, and sustainability studies. It is proposed that: 1) Multi-faceted patterns of ALS are the basis for subsequent analysis. It should consider not only the characteristics ALS at the land use and land cover level, e.g. the transitions between cropland and other land cover types, but also the characteristics of cropping system, crop allocation, intensification and productivity within cropland. Interdisciplinary approaches and data integration are necessary for understanding the complex characteristics of ALS. 2) Multi-model coupling through the interpretation and intercorrelation of ALS patterns and underlying drivers is an essential way to represent ALS dynamic changes, processes and its mechanisms, by which it is able to better understand the coupled human-environment interactions across different time, space and scales. 3) It is important to link the ALS with other parallel systems to understand their synergies and trade-offs, in order to build up a sustainable pathway for future agricultural land use. Those solutions for ALS studies would substantially promote the interdisciplinary integration and will contribute to the development of Land System Science and its relevant sciences.