Abstract: The summer monsoon transition zone (SMTZ) is one of the most sensitive areas affected by summer monsoon. Land-atmosphere interaction in the transition zone and its response to summer monsoon is an important scientific issue. In this study, we analyze the formation and basic characteristics of the SMTZ, discuss a few main issues of land-atmosphere interaction process in the SMTZ, and preliminarily propose the responding mechanism of land-atmosphere interaction to variations of summer monsoon. It is stated that the land-atmosphere interaction in the SMTZ contains multi-feedback mechanisms, including the water-heat-ecology coupling process on the surface, multi-interface exchanges from near surface to free atmosphere, and multi-scale interaction of summer monsoon and special hydrological cycle of the land surface. Meanwhile, main progresses, key scientific issues, seven research fields that should be focused on, and basic methods of experiments have been preliminarily proposed. The present study provides a guideline for the study of land-atmosphere interaction and its response to summer monsoon in the future.