Abstract: Aiming at the problem that the single rule cellular automata image encryption is easy to be attacked by the plain text, this paper analyzes the limitation of the key space, and proposes a new encryption algorithm based on the high order reversible cellular automata. Through the analysis of the reversible cellular automaton characteristics, we construct the rules of higher order reversible cellular automata, combined with results of raster map after quadtree decomposition, which replacing the traditional method of all pixels of multiple cycle iterative encryption. Encrypt the raster map under the premise of not increasing cellular automata structure complexity. Experiments show that the proposed method is of high key space and high encryption efficiency. It can effectively resist differential attacks and clear text attacks, and it is also suitable for real time image encryption based on the integrity of map data.