Sun was born in Songjiang County,
Shanghai, on 10 August 1937, while his
ancestral home is in
Yancheng,
Jiangsu. In 1959, he entered
Xi'an Jiaotong University, where he majored in power system automation. After graduating in 1964, he was despatched to the Comprehensive Investigation Committee of the
Chinese Academy of Sciences. During the
Cultural Revolution, he was forced to work in the fields of
May Seventh Cadre Schools and returned to the Institute of Geography, Chinese Academy of Sciences in 1972. He was promoted to associate research fellow of the Land and Resources Information Research Office of Comprehensive Examination Association of the Chinese Academy of Sciences in March 1978. In January 1991 he was promoted again to become research fellow. In March 1992, he was appointed deputy director of Agricultural Research Center of National Agricultural Zoning Commission of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, a post he kept until August 1997. Following the merging of the Natural Resources Comprehensive Investigation Committee and the Institute of Geography into a new Institute of Geographic Sciences and Natural Resources Research in September 1999, he was also transferred to the newly workplace. In May 2002, he was recruited as a professor of
Henan University. On 10 May 2023, he died of an illness in
Beijing, aged 85. ==Contributions==