Traffic economic belt (TEB) is a kind of belt shaped regional economic organization system which takes the lineal bunch of infrastructure as its development axis.Under a special historical background of itself the TEB emerges, and relying on its laws the TEB forms, develops and evolves.In the course of development of TEB, it is an effective developing way that forms the mechanism of coordinate development of transportation and regional economy, takes the main lines of transportation as main shaft, the cities on the lines as growth centers, and the rationalization and escalation of industrial structure as the purpose of TEB development.Firstly, the paper defines the TEB, which also can be classified into four types:coast oriented, river oriented, road oriented and integrated transport corridor TEB.Based on it, the paper deeply discusses the essential feature of TEB.Secondly, the paper puts forward the life circle theory of traffic economic belt.The authors think TEB is an especial phase in the development of the regional economic system.Just like the typical development process of all organisms, the traffic economic belt also has germination, expansion, mature and decline phase and shows different space time pattern at every phase of traffic economic belt.The development of TEB can be classified into four stages:1.the period of rudiment:the ways of transportation in TEB are very simple and the structure of industry is still rude.The center of economy in the TEB is only embodied by the function of its transportation center; 2.the period of bulge:the ability of transportation in the TEB has been enforced greatly.The industry which is based on abstracting raw material has played an important role in the whole TEB.At the same time, the function of the economic center in the TEB has been enforced and has proliferated along the lines of transportation;3.the period of maturation:at the period, the integrated transport corridor has shaped and the urbanization has accelerated.The tertiary sector has become the most important industry in the TEB.Suburbanization leads the amalgamation between the city and rural when the sub center in the TEB has formed; 4.the period of amalgamation and ruin:on the one hand, with the interaction of centralization and proliferation of the factor of production, the borderline of the hinterland of city has died out.The urban agglomeration with different economic center network has formed based on the integrated transport corridor.At the same time, different TEBS also have amalgamated and interacted; on the other hand, some economic belts come to waste away because of the descending of the ability of transportation.At last the paper points out that research on the life circle theory of traffic economy belt is quite important to the adjustment of development of TEB.