Abstract: Xiamen, among coastal cities of China, has become a model of high-quality development. It is necessary to conduct a comprehensive ecological risk evaluation based on landscape patterns to formulate land use policies and maintain regional ecological security. In this paper, using the land use data of 1990, 2000, 2010 and 2020, we have revealed the spatial-temporal distribution pattern of landscape pattern change characteristics and ecological risk based on ArcGIS 10.8 and Fragstats 4.2 software. Results show that (1) the area of cultivated land, forest land and water bodies decreased, while the area of construction land increased and the grassland area remained stable from 1990 to 2020. (2) Cultivated land was the largest type of land use transfer, with a total reduction of 238.63 km³, this transfer was the most evident in 2000-2010. (3) The disturbance indexes for all land use types showed an upward trend, except for construction land. (4) The landscape ecological risk was predominated characterized by medium and high risks but for areas of high ecological risk which showed a decreasing trend. However, the average ecological risk indexes in the areas decreased from 0.035 1 to 0.029 8. The findings of this study offer valuable insights for the ecological risk management in coastal cities and serve as a reference for optimizing landscape patterns in coastal regions when promoting sustainable development and the construction of ecological civilization.