Abstract: Maxent niche model was used to project the potential distribution of alien plant species Spartina alterniflora in China, with 96 S. alterniflora records and marine and climatic data along China coastal area. The results showed that suitable area for the distribution of S. alterniflora occupied 85% of coastal areas, with the highly suitable area, the medium, and low suitable area accounting for 18%, 34% and 33%, respectively. Only 15% of the coastal areas were regions with distribution possibility of less than 5%. Its distribution suitability was mainly related to annual lowest seawater temperature, annual mean seawater temperature, annual mean air temperature, and annual lowest temperature in January. However, the importance of annual mean precipitation, annual mean daily diurnal range, seawater salinity, annual highest seawater temperature, annual highest tempe-rature in June and current velocity was relatively small. At the highly suitable areas for S. alterni-flora, the annual lowest seawater temperature ranged from 0.62 to 24.81 ℃, the annual mean seawater temperature ranged from 10.46 to 27.29 ℃, the annual mean air temperature was between 9 to 25 ℃, and the annual lowest temperature in January was between -13.5 and 16.7 ℃. The distribution possibility of S. alterniflora in the northern coastal area was over 20%, indicating it has a great potential to invade further north in China, especially in Bohai Bay areas. According to the current distribution records and climatic data in China, the invasion risk of S. alterniflora in central and southern coasts of Hainan and most regions of Taiwan Province was low, but the possibility of future invasion can not be excluded.