The carbothermic reduction of calcined magnesite in vacuum was studied. By thermodynamic analysis, the starting temperature of reduction reaction dropped from 2173K to 1523K when system pressure dropped from 1 atmosphere to 100 Pa. The experiments were carried out at different conditions under 10~100 Pa and the experimental results shown that the reduction extent of MgO improved by increasing the reaction temperature and time, the pellet forming pressure as well as adding fluoride as catalyst. The rate-determining step of carbothermic reduction process was gas diffusion with the apparent activation energy of 241.19~278.56 kJ/mol.