Abstract: The oil sand resources are very abundant in China, and its reserves occupy the fifth level in the world. So it will probably be one of major fields for unconventional oil-gas resources exploration in China. The oil sand resources are found in almost all petroliferous basins, but mainly distributed in four types of basins: the tectonic compressive basins in the west, the rift basins in the east, the transitional basins in the middle and the intermountain basins in the south, among which such seven basins as Junggar, Tarim, Qiangtang, Qaidam, Songliao, Sichuan and Ordos ones have enormous oil-sand resources. They will be major areas of domestic oil sand exploration and development in the future.

Key words: China, oil sand, reserve, resource potential, unconventional hydrocarbon