This dissertation examines the environmental dimensions of the Ming empire’s (1368–1644) large-scale border-making efforts in strategic positions in northwest China, with a specific focus on the Ordos Plateau and its surrounding areas. Contrary to the rhetorical divide between nomadic and sedentary civilizations, Ordos and its surrounding regions, characterized by arid and semi-arid landscapes, are situated in the transition zones between agricultural and pastoral areas. While conventionally border-making was considered part of institutional state formation, I argue through four case studies that the Ming empire’s border-making was an enterprise that involved dimensions of human- nature relations, including local officers’ fortification of fertile lands, local soldier- farmers’ cultivation practices, local horse-rearing soldiers’ animal husbandry and local non-Chinese civilians’ animal husbandry. Using five types of sources, including the central government’s documents, local materials, contemporary technological encyclopedias, modern archaeological and biological research, and geographical information system (GIS) maps, the dissertation methodologically regards nature and human activities as interconnected and mutually shaping each other. It highlights how the Ming authorities constructed the empire’s borderlands not just by regulating the movements of people and resources, but also by managing sustainable human-nature relations that ultimately shaped border residents’ livelihoods. By examining the relations between border-making and environmental relations, this dissertation argues that the Ming empire’s border-making played a crucial role in shaping border landscapes and human-nature relations, while also being conditioned and influenced by the environmental factors specific to each region.