Abstract: According to their position to the plate, natural disasters, such as intensive crustal deformation, earthquakes, volcanoes and others, could be divided to two types:along the plate boundary and within the intraplate. They are controlled by active tectonics. This paper summarized the previous studies on active tectonic zones and natural disasters along the plate boundaries and within the intraplate, and discussed the relationships among global plate boundary, intraplate active tectonics and forming mechanisms of disasters. Formation mechanism of active tectonics at plate boundary has been excellently explained by the theory of plate tectonics, the formation of intraplate active tectonics is attributed to intraplate tectono-thermal heterogeneity and deep-seated dynamics in addition to the plate tectonics mechanisms. This article focuses on the relationship between seismic activities and active tectonics (especially active faults) from plate boundary to intraplate, and in view of the Earth system science discuss the triggering mechanism of earthquaks so as to reveal the formation and distribution of the earthquakes more clearly and provide more evidence for prediction of probability occurrence of earthquakes.