The invention discloses a message forwarding method based on a forwarding table of medium access control, comprising the following steps of: carrying out MAC network level division to all nodes in the network; setting MAC network segments of all MAC network levels, MAC mask codes of all MAC network segments and virtual MAC addresses of all nodes according to the division to the MAC network levels; converging into the MAC forwarding table according to the set MAC network segments, the set MAC mask codes and the set virtual MAC addresses; and after the nodes receive the message, forwarding the message by inquiring the converged MAC forwarding table. The invention also discloses a message forwarding system based on the MAC forwarding table correspondingly, comprising a network division unit, a set unit, a converging unit and a message forwarding unit. The invention converges the existing plurality of entries into one entry, thus saving network resource; in addition, as the entries are reduced, the times for inquiring the entries are correspondingly reduced when a switch forwards the message, thus improving the forwarding efficiency of the message.