Abstract: Cultivated land is one of the most important resource bases for national food security. The pattern of the cultivated land use can also shift from one to another, including the dominant and recessive transitions. It is often required to coordinate the conflict between cultivated land use and dominant and recessive transitions. However, previous studies have been focused mainly on their separation. It is still lacking in the systematic understanding of the cultivated land use transition. In this study, a theoretical framework was proposed for the interaction between cultivated land use dominant and recessive transitions, according to the human-earth system theory. The evaluation index was further established for the transition of the cultivated land use. The entropy weight method was utilized to determine the spatiotemporal evolution of the cultivated land use dominant and recessive transition in 31 provinces in China from 2000 to 2020. The coupling coordination model was also adopted to measure the coupling coordination degree between two transitions. Additionally, the coordination influence model was applied to explore the influence factors. The results show that: 1) A downward trend was found in the development level of the cultivated land dominant transition in China from 2000 to 2020. The higher levels were observed in the agricultural provinces in the northeastern and eastern regions. While the lower levels were the provinces in the southwestern, southern, and western regions. By contrast, an upward trend was found in the development level of the cultivated land use recessive transition in China. The higher levels were in the provinces in the eastern coastal and western inland regions, thus driving the development level of the surrounding provinces. 2) There was a gradual increase in the coupling coordination degree between cultivated land dominant and recessive transitions in the study period. The decreasing provinces were in the imbalance stage, whereas the increasing provinces were in the coordination stage. There was the spatial pattern of “leading in the east, catching up in the west, and lagging behind in the middle”. Furthermore, the coupling coordination of nine provinces (including Ningxia) was shifted from the recessive to the dominant transition lagging types. While Xinjiang was shifted from the dominant to the recessive transition lagging type. Additionally, the northern provinces were characterized by the dominant transition lagging types, while the southern provinces were the recessive ones. 3) There was the negative effect of the per capita cultivated land area, average patch area, average total mechanical power, irrigation ratio of cultivated land, and average output value of the primary industry on the coupling coordination between cultivated land dominant and recessive transitions. While the positive effect was found in the land reclamation rate, patch density, edge density, proportion of cultivated land patches to landscape area, average fertilizer input, average pesticide input, average plastic film input, and average grain yield. This finding can also offer practical insight into the decision-making on the cultivated land protection and sustainable utilization for food security.