Abstract: Starting from Banham's “ecological” interpretation of Los Angeles, this paper summarizes the Italian contemporary urban planning practices based on the ecological perspective. It takes the structural plans of Bologna and Antwerp as examples to illustrate how to establish theme-oriented “city of cities” through recognizing and connecting distinctive urban fragments under the ecological perspective, and put forward corresponding planning strategies to guide urban development. It takes Gulangyu Island as a case to explore the application of this new perspective and approach in inhomogeneous historic areas of China. Through defining the “four systems” and “four areas”, it attempts to elaborately deepen the structural and differentiated understanding of the complex physical and social situations as well as future development objectives. Based on this, it proposes targeted planning strategies to balance the needs of heritage conservation, tourism development and improvement of local livability. The study summarizes that the ecology-based Italian planning practices are able to provide new cognitive perspectives, planning ideas, approaches and tools for present planning practices in China, and also support the improvement of China’s planning systems with the frameworks of structural planning and strategic planning involved.