Abstract: It is typically difficult to characterize the imbalance and spatial heterogeneity of ecosystem service supply and demand. The research on ecosystem services flow can effectively characterize the cascade structure and horizontal process of ecosystem services featured by “supply-flow-demand”. On the basis of clarifying the connotation of related concepts, the research firstly analyzes the basic characteristics of ecosystem services flow from the perspective of spatial relationship and scale effect. Then, it clarifies the process of ecosystem services flow from the perspective of influencing factors and trade-off synergy. After that, it combs the evaluation methods for ecosystem services flow from the perspectives of biophysics, economic benefits and social culture. Finally, the research summarizes the spatial mapping methods and models for ecosystem services flow from the perspectives of supply-demand and flow and scenario simulation, figuring out that it is an important research direction in the future to achieve dynamic quantification and path simulation of ecosystem services flow by service path attribution networks (SPANs) model. The research on ecosystem services flow has undergone a transformation from the utility evaluation of ecosystem service supply and demand to the measurement simulation of the whole flow process, which not only deepens the understanding of ecosystem services flow transmission mechanism, but also makes the accurate identification and optimization of ecosystem services flow space widely used in landscape planning and design.