In the new context of the territorial spatial planning in China, this paper applies Kernel Density Estimation, Standard Deviational Ellipse and categorical statistics to examine the changes of the spatial distribution of China's national and provincial development zones from 2006 to 2018. In terms of density distribution, it reveals that the East-West gap eased, but the spatial distribution pattern still differed during this period. The spatial distribution of China's national and provincial development zones has gradually shifted from an area-agglomeration pattern to a corridor-agglomeration pattern in the central and eastern regions of China; and in the western and northern regions a centered agglomeration pattern is emerging. In a general sense, the overall barycenter of the spatial distribution of development zones has been moving towards the northwest, and the development axis has shifted from the previous north-south direction to the southeast-northwest axis. This shift is driven by macro-level policy and spatial regulation based on major function-oriented zones, and will in turn affect the formulation of new land use control policies. From the perspective of major function-oriented zones, the spatial distribution of China's development zones undergoes a dynamic adjustment of diffusing to the periphery and shrinking in some local areas. The areal growth of the development zones is mainly concentrated in the key development areas with a spatial clustering pattern, such as Hebei, Henan, Anhui, Jiangsu and Zhejiang. In contrast, the areal decrease of the development zones mainly occurs in the ecological function areas, and the spatial distribution is scatter-featured. These places mainly include Shandong, Fujian, Jilin, Heilongjiang and some others. These new changes in the spatial distribution of development zones can be an important reference for China's territorial land use control practice and land use optimization and management, which are the key themes in the transformation period of China's territorial spatial planning.