Port-city is the hinge that links open China and the world economy. Foreign economic relations have become one important part of Chinese economic life since the reform and opening. Along with China's success entrance to WTO(World Trade Organization),the economic contacts with foreign countries will become closer and closer, therefor, it's necessary to study port-city's hinterland from foreign economic linkage angle. Foreign trade is one of the main forms of Chinese foreign economic relations and the 39 cities with customs at office level in 1997 can be seen as the main port-cities of China. On the basis of the foreign trade goods flow data between 39 port-cities and 324 inland trade districts in 1997, this paper tries to reveal the spatial pattern of foreign economic linkage of Chinese mainland through the study of port-cities' foreign-oriented hinterland.At first, the paper compares the port-cities' foreign trade goods volumes that represent the dominance of port-cities in foreign trade linkages, and finds the port-cities in different areas possess different significances in foreign goods flow. The port-cities in China's eastern coastal areas are the main pivots that link China with foreign countries, there were more than 95 percent foreign trade flow passed through the coastal port-cities in 1997. In the eastern coastal areas, the port-cities' dominances in foreign trade flow are different too, the first three port-cities, Shanghai, Guangzhou, and Shenzhen comprise 54 percent of the total foreign goods flow. Tianjin, Qingdao, Dalian and Nanjing are also important port-cities in the coastal areas. The regional disparity in foreign trade development and seaport status is the main factors affecting the port-cities' dominance.Then the study of port-cities' hinterland in foreign trade linkages also indicates the coastal port-cities' significance. Not only the coastal areas is under their control, but most backland foreign goods flow also has to pass through the coastal port-cities. The port-cities that are located 6 coastal city-and-town concentrated areas, the Pearl River Delta Region, the Yangtze River Delta Region,the Beijing-Tianjin-Tangshan Region, the Central and Southern Liaonng Province, Shandong Peninsular and the Southeastern Fujian Province, are the main passages to the outside, their influence sphere nearly covers all the country. The distribution of coastal port-cities' foreign-oriented hinterland takes on evident regional character, and shows the feature of interweaving too. To reflect the macroscopical spatial pattern of port-cities' hinterland, the coastal port-cities are organized into six port-city groups, including the Pearl River Delta Region, the Yangtze River Delta Region, the Beijing-Tianjin-Tangshan-Qinhuangdaao Region, the Central and Southern Liaonng Province, Shandong Peninsular, and the Coastal Fujian port-city group. Further study shows that the six port-city groups have more evident regional division in foreign trade linkages. According to the port-city groups' foreign-oriented hinterland, Chinese mainland was divided into 4 large foreign economic linkage regions which named the North-East Region, the Yellow River Basin Region, the Yangtze River Basin Region and the South China Region, 2 more little regions( Shandong and Fujian Region) and several bordering regions whose main foreign economic partners are bordering countries.