Ecological footprint (EF) has attracted much attention internationally as a potential indicator for sustainable development. In China, EF has also gained recognition in related fields and disciplines. Moreover, some scholars in these fields have proposed alternative methods to calculate EF and have made some progress. This paper, therefore, begins with the introduction and development of EF in China. However, the established methods of EF calculation hold some limitations, such as indicator variance and result abnormality. In order to resolve those problems, the authors make a further modification considering the demand of EF as a comprehensive indicator: 1) More accurate analysis has been done to divide EF into several parts: imported EF, exported EF, and producible EF, which is the solution to the problem of abnormality in original EF results and can explain abnormal phenomena reasonably. 2) Considering the actual situation of Shanghai, amended equivalence factor is brought forward and a matrix is formed with equivalence factors. The measure can reduce the deviation between the fact and the results. 3) The calculation compares local yield with global average yield to analyze the effects of yields. And based on local yields in different years, the results are more accurate.Finally, the calculation method is applied to calculating EF of Shanghai from 1980 to 2003, and the subsequent detailed analysis is presented. Available data and results suggest a statistically significant correlation coefficient between EF and GDP, population density and urbanization level. Through analyzing the process of calculating EF and its results, it can be seen that EF, as a macro-indicator, can not exactly indicate whether development within a region can meet the requests of sustainable development, which can be explained by the fact that the result of EF is impacted greatly by subjective factors including national policy,available technology, population, etc. Nevertheless, EF can demonstrate, at least to some degree, the regional status in terms of resources and energy consumption, as well as developmental potential.The calculation of EF, therefore, deserves further research to achieve more far-reaching significance in application.