This article describes a method of complex assessment of sustainable development of territories on the basis of social development index, index of economic development and index of the ecological tension. The developed method allows one to comprehensively analyze sustainable development of territories, and at the same time enables one to detail the elements of the problem detected by successive hierarchical decomposition of each of aggregated indices. The methodology takes into account the peculiarities of inhomogeneous and difficult comparable regions, the evaluation of which by using conventional methods of identification and typology does not provide the most rapid, effective and objective results. Approbation of methodology was carried out on the example of the Russian Federation. The possibilities for the analysis of sustainable development are supplemented with a map, built in the color triangle method, which allows one to visualize the balance of components at each analyzed level. Considered theoretical principles and their practical use helped to complete an assessment of basic parameters of sustainable development of Russian regions. On their basis it is possible to form a unified list of criteria, which could become a national standard for the assessment of sustainable development at the local, regional and federal levels, and be recommended for practical use in the development and adoption of new regional solutions.