Abstract:[Objective] The applicability of long-term and high-resolution land cover products in karst areas of Southern China was explored to provide new data support for revealing the characteristics of vegetation evolution in karst rocky desertification areas of Yunnan Plateau. [Methods] Precision testing, Sen’s slope, a transition matrix, and other methods were used to evaluate the accuracy of CLCD_v1.0.2 land cover data, with a resolution of 30 m, from 1985 to 2022, using Shilin County in the central part of the Yunnan Plateau as an example. The spatiotemporal characteristics of the expansion of the vegetation in the karst rocky desertification areas on the Yunnan Plateau were studied based on these data. [Results] ① The overall accuracy of the validation samples in the study area was 87.85% and the kappa coefficient of 0.83. The user accuracy of forest land was the highest at 95.24%, whereas that of grassland was the lowest at 73.76%. ② Arable land, forest land, and grassland were the main vegetation types in Shilin County, with average annual areas of 810.20, 632.85, and 245.74 km2, respectively. Shrubs and unvegetated areas cover relatively small areas, at 14.90 and 15.31 km2, respectively. From 1985 to 2022, the areas of cultivated land, forest land, and unvegetated areas in Shilin County increased by 34.17, 112.24, and 10.79 km2, respectively. Shrub and grassland areas decreased overall by 15.62 and 141.58 km2, respectively. The forest and unvegetated areas markedly increased, whereas the grassland considerably decreased trend from 1985 to 2022; forested land and grassland were the main cultivated land types. Forest land mainly changed to cultivated land, grassland mainly converted into cultivated and forest land, and shrubland mainly converted into forest land. The conversion of other vegetation types to forest land concentrated in the core and buffer zones of the Shilin World Natural Heritage Site and the Guishan National Forest Park as well as the edge of the Shilin rift basin. [Conclusion] The CLCD data met the requirements for vegetation evolution analysis in the karst rocky desertification areas. The pattern in the spatial changes of the vegetation in the karst rocky desertification areas compensated for the reduction in arable land area caused by the construction of protected areas and reflects the spatial scope and effectiveness of the implementation of policies, such as returning farmland to forests and halting afforestation on mountains.