The invention relates to a lithium rich manganese based layered lithium battery cathode material, the formula is Li[Li<1-x-y-z>NixCoyMn2]O2, wherein x is more than zero and less than 0.5, y is more than zero and less than 0.5, z is more than 0.1 and less than 0.7, (1-x-y-z) is more than zero and less than 0.5, D50 is 10 to 20 micrometers, the specific surface area is 1-4 square meters per gram, and the discharging capacity reaches 200 to 300mAh per gram at charging/discharging current density of 12.5mA per gram. The preparation method comprises the following steps of: firstly, preparing a lithium source, a nickel source, a cobalt source and a manganese source; secondly, mixing original materials according to proportion to prepare a mixed salt solution; thirdly, adding polyacrylic acid and citric acid and uniformly mixing; fourthly, heating to form a stable sol, evaporating water to form gel, and drying the gel to form xerogel; and finally, sintering to obtain the lithium rich manganese based layered lithium battery cathode material. The cathode material disclosed by the invention has the advantages of high specific discharging capacity, good safety, low production cost and high performance cost rate.