Abstract: The distribution of Yunnan characteristic towns in the whole province is uneven with obvious regional differences.One hundred and five characteristic towns in Yunnan were chosen for spatial analysis by using ArcGIS.Combined with mathematical statistics,the spatial distribution of characteristic towns in Yunnan and the factors affecting their distribution and development were studied.The results are as follows: there is a large gap in the number of characteristic towns among different states in Yunnan with the largest number of characteristic towns in Honghe and in Diqing; the types of characteristic towns are mainly tourism towns supplemented by agricultural towns; the spatial distribution of characteristic towns in Yunnan is agglomerative with sparse density in the north,dense in the middle and south,forming two high density areas in the west of Baoshan,Kunming-Honghe-Yuxi,and a secondary density area with Dali as the core.The spatial distribution of characteristic towns is affected by topography,natural and human resources endowment,traffic network,and policy factors.

Key words: spatial distribution, influencing factors, characteristic towns, Yunnan