Abstract: The article introduces the methods of measuring the glacier area and the glacier advance or retreat on the topographic maps and the satellite mages.Three instruments are used for the measurement: a5-time magnifier,a transparent gridded overlay and a glass straight edge with 0.1mm reading. Its accuracy and error are also discussed.The main error in glacier area measurement is from the glacier boundary which may reach about ?10 percent on the landsat images.The reliability of amount of glacier advance or retreat is influenced by the residual error. But this influence can be eliminated.The error for measuring the glacier advance or retreat comes mainly from the dimension of pixel,the accuracy of the maps and the method used.But the error of mean square is not more then ?100m which represents the accuracy for measuring the glacier advance or retreat on satellite images.