Abstract: The marine strata in southern China underwent polycyclic tectonic movement and intensive late reworking in lon g geologic times. The differences of multistage subsidence and uplift, and regional erosion and deposition in different parts of southern China since the Indo-China movement have led to the delineation of six types of burial history, which may be separated into two groups including the "early subsidence-late uplift" and "early uplift-late subsidence". As a result, there are marked differences in hydrocarbon generation and evolution in different parts of southern China. According continuity of the hydrocarbon-generating processes, the hydrocarbon generation and evolution may be involved into three models, namely the continuous hydrocarbon generation, secondary hydrocarbon generation and late hydrocarbon generation.