With lanthanum (La) in agriculture, medicine, and the chemical industry, La shows accumulation in the body, especially in the bone, because of its similar structure to calcium. Moreover, La has a direct role in bone formation regulating osteoblasts and osteoclasts. Nevertheless, bone formation is complex under the regulation of osteogenesis, osteoclastogenesis, and angiogenesis in the bone microenvironment. It is difficult to comprehensively understand the regulation of bone homeostasis from a single kind of cell. Herein, some bone microenvironment-related cells and mouse calvaria culture models were used to study the regulatory effect of La-based compound-lanthanum nitrate (La(NO3)3) on bone formation. La(NO3)3 has good biological safety, and the osteogenic differentiation is significantly increased under La(NO3)3 treatment for bone marrow mesenchymal stem cells (BMMSC). In contrast, the differentiation, maturation, and bone erosion ability of osteoclasts are significantly decreased. Meanwhile, the angiogenesis ability of human umbilical vein endothelial cells (HUVEC) is significantly promoted when treated with La(NO3)3. Furthermore, bone metabolism and angiogenesis are improved under La(NO3)3 treatment in the calvaria ex vivo culture model and BMMSC-HUVEC co-culture system. These results suggest that La has the beneficial effect of promoting bone metabolism and improving bone formation in the bone microenvironment. (c) 2023 Chinese Society of Rare Earths. Published by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.