With vast sea areas, long coastline and complex environmental conditions, the China seas contain various habitats for bivalves. The diversity characteristics of some typical habitats can reflect the molluscan fauna of China seas. Based on our years of work and records from malacologists home and abroad, the bivalve diversity, habitats and ecological habits in different environments are described, and the distribution characters in different sea areas are analysed. Due to the effects of coastal water, Yellow Sea Cold Water Mass and Yellow Sea Warm Current, faunal elements in Yellow Sea are the most complex. Most of the species in East China Sea are subtropical elements, and the warm water species increases with the decrease of latitude and distance from coast, because of the hydrological characters of Kuroshio Warm Current and Taiwan Warm Current. The south part of the South China Sea is close to the equator and the north part is subtropical, with many special habitats, such as, coral reefs, mangroves and sea grass beds. The biodiversity is the highest among China seas. Up to now, a total of 1,104 species of bivalves belonging to 393 genera 77 families are reported. The number of species occurred in Bohai Sea, Yellow Sea, East China Sea and South China Sea are 87, 175, 337 and 822 respectively.

Keywords： mollusca ; bivalves ; biodiversity ; ecological habit ; habitat ; fauna