Abstract: China-type petroleum domains include onshore China and adjacent belts,which is enwrapped by Asia-type petroleum domain. Such small, intensively active continental nucleus did not generate a unified platform by continental overgrowth until the end of the Paleozoic, and was separated by the subducted and closed Tethys Sea during Mesozoic and Neozoic period, resulting in the most complex tectonic features in the world. Within the petroleum domains, the hydrocarbon-bearing Paleozoic, Mesozoic and Neozoic sequences were superimposed in a basin. With an exception of the active continental margin basins, the intra-cratonic basins had disappeared, and the foreland basins and rift basins were different from others in the world, so they can be called China-type basins.

Key words: China, petroleum domain, basin type, Tarim basin, Bohai Bay basin, Yinggehai-Qiongdongnan basin