Regional crustal stability assessment，an important sub discipline of engineering geology, is a unique regional engineering geological theory developed in decades practice of Chinese engineering geological. It played a positive role in engineering site selection, land and resources planning, disaster prevention and other geological work, having formed a better theory, be widely accepted by the majority of engineering geologists. Based on review and summary of regional crustal stability studies, this article divided its development experiences to 4 stages: ① incubation period of 1950s~1970s; ② established period of 1960s~1980s; ③ development period from the 1980s to the early 21st century; ④ wandering period from start of 21st century to the present, and analyzed the main problems of the regional crustal stability studies. On this basis, combined with the compilation of first specification of Investigation and Assessment for Active Fault and Regional Crustal Stability by China Geological Survey Bureau, this paper described the social needs, guideline and main content structure of the specification, discussed some problems of considerable controversy and given corresponding solutions. The aim of those work is to contribute a help to the development of the specific engineering geological theory and the implement of this specification.