In order to explore a more suitable land intensive use evaluation method, this paper evaluated 11 typical development zone land intensive use with the theory of gray and matter element model, and the results were compared with that by comprehensive evaluation method. The results show that:Nanjing Development Zones intensive land level shows a significant difference, only the Nanjing high tech Industrial Development Zone, Nanjing economic and Technological Development Zone intensive land use level is "highly intensive level ", the rest of development zones intensive land use level is "moderate intensive level" and "light intensive level"; The main limiting factors of intensive land use in Nanjing development zones are different, but the main factors are comprehensive volume ratio, comprehensive volume ratio of industrial land, fixed assets investment intensity of industrial land, industrial output intensity, and so on; Compared with multi-factor comprehensive evaluation method, the mater-element model not only can reflect comprehensive intensive level of evaluation objects, also can reflect intensive level of single index of evaluation objects, and also can reflect the steady state level and transformation trend of evaluation object and its single index. Due to matter-element model can reflect more abundant information, so it is a valuable method in land intensive use assessment.