For four types of land cover in Liaoning province, the variations of their EVI and NDVI basing on MODIS data in time series were studied in this paper. The result can offer a method of monitoring land cover types. The characteristics of EVI and NDVI from four kinds of land cover, including woodland, cropland, water and urban area, were analyzed by the data statistics method whose data were from 16 regions of interest in Liaoning province basing on 2012 MODIS data. In the woodland coverage areas, the shape of their NDVI and EVI in time series looked like a bell-shaped curve in the period of forests turning green and growing, NDVI was prone to become saturated, and could not show the growth process of trees while EVI could better do that. In the cropland coverage area, the shape of their NDVI and EVI in time series looked like an inverted V-shaped curve in the period of crops growing season. In the water coverage areas and urban areas, the values of their NDVI and EVI were slightly higher in the summer than other seasons, and the annual variation range of their NDVI and EVI was small. In the cropland coverage areas, both NDVI and EVI could well show the process of vegetation growth. In the water coverage areas and urban areas, NDVI sensitively was influenced by noise, while EVI could overcome this shortcoming. The curves shape of NDVI and EVI under different land cover types is of great significance for vegetation classification and extraction in Liaoning province. The figures characteristics of NDVI and EVI indicate that EVI can well monitor the growth of forest in the woodland coverage areas, both NDVI and EVI can monitor the growth of crops in the cropland coverage area, and EVI can well monitor the growth of vegetation in the water coverage areas and urban areas.