Based on the framework of the active aging, the World Health Organization has put forward an action plan for healthy aging. This paper explains the concepts of the successful aging, the active aging and the healthy aging. This paper reviews the application of the concepts of the place, the sense of the place and the therapeutic landscape in the study of the experiences and the meanings of the aging process from the perspective of the health geography, and identifies the transformations of the theoretical ideas from the aging in the place to the aging in the right place. This paper also reviews the policy practice of the healthy aging, as well as the practice of the aging in the right place in communities and the residential care facilities. In the summary and the discussions, it is shown that the aging in the place is a choice for the majority of the elderly in China, and the residential care as an option for the aging in the right place provides a supplement for the aging in the place. There is still a gap between the practice and the theory of the healthy aging. It is suggested that the top-level design should be combined with the local practice to promote the healthy aging.

healthy aging  /  sense of place  /  aging in the right place  /  health geography