Abstract: The establishment of nature reserves offers the most basic guarantee to in-situ conservation of biodiversity. However, the contradiction between community development and resource conservation in the reserves has been getting more and more intense, with the country strengthening its effort on in-situ conservation, how to harmonize the development with the conservation has become one of the core tasks for nature reserve management. Distribution of local residents in and its impacts on the nature reserves in China were analyzed, based on the basic survey program of nature reserves and the literature available. Results show that by the end of 2014, a total of 12.56 million residents had dwelled in the 1657 boundary-defined nature reserves, averaging 0.1 ind·hm^-2. The activities of the residents inevitably rendered some impacts on the nature reserves, mainly in the aspects of land resources, wildlife and environmental quality. For the first time, this study systematically elucidated distribution patterns of local residents in the nature reserves and their impacts on the reserves in China, which is of important significance to formulation of related policies for in-situ conservation of biodiversity and promotion of harmonized development of the nature reserves and the community economy.