More than 90% of water resources in Xinjiang originate from mountainous areas. As one of the important drives leading to hydrological and ecological change, land use change may influence canopy interception, evapotranspiration and percolation and eventually cause flood-drought disasters and ecological problems. During past decades,climate change and human activity have deeply changed mountain environment in Xinjiang. However,the direction and magnitude of land cover change were not clear in the three mountain areas (i. e. the Altai Mountains,the Tianshan Mountains and the Kunlun Mountains). In this paper,land cover change of mountainous regions in Xinjiang were explored qualitatively and quantitatively. Land cover types transition were extracted and analyzed from 2000 to 2010 based on the land cover maps of 1990,2000 and 2010; vegetation change were also examined from 1982 to 2013 with the help of Geographic Information System (GIS) and Mann- Kendall non-parametric test method,based on GIMMS 3 g NDVI data preprocessed with the monthly mean, standardized anomalies and trend preserving prewhitening methods. Then,the spatial relationship between land cover type transition and vegetation condition change were discussed. In addition,qualitatively change were observed. Land cover classes did not changed in 99% of the area. But in more than 30% of mountainous area, NDVI have significantly changed. The area with vegetation degradation accounts for about 30%,25.27% and 33.69% in the Altai,the Tianshan and the Kunlun mountains respectively,while 4.07%,18.26% and 19.83% area of the vegetation have improved,respectively. Vegetation degradation mostly occurred in the low elevation area with strong disturbance of human activities; the grassland and sparse grassland are main land cover types which have degraded. The degraded grassland area accounts for 22.18% of the total grassland area in the Altai Mountains; the degraded areas of grassland and sparse grassland account for 18.88% and 10.74% of their total area in the Tianshan and the Kunlun mountains,respectively. Analysis from qualitative and quantitative views could supply an insight of land use and cover change of mountains in Xinjiang,which should be essential and useful in evaluating the ecological and hydrological responses of climate change and human activities.