Three-fifths of the world’s population lives in coastal zones. The rapid increase of the population in the zone is bound to have a significant impact on the ecological environment, thus affecting economic sustainable development. Therefore, a coastal zone was regarded as the study area, and we studied the land use changes and its driving factors in the zone. The study had an important guiding significance for the scientific management and sustainable development of land in zones. Firstly, object-oriented classification was used as the classification method of land use. Secondly, the dynamic degree of land use and canonical correlation analysis were used to study the land use changes and its driving factors. The results showed that forestland and grassland, and cultivated land were the main types of land use in the study area over the study period. The area of forestland, grassland and aquaculture increased while the area of cultivated land decreased. The area of aquaculture and unused land has dramatically changed over the study period. Population was the main driving factor for the areal change of construction land, water and unused land. The main driving factors of aquaculture were population and primary industry. Population and policy were the main driving factors of cultivated land. Policy was the main driving factor causing the change of forestland and grassland. Consequently, policy, population and primary industry were the main drivers of land use changes in the coastal zone.