Abstract: Under the background of “double carbon” target, the construction of a new energy system, the photovoltaic (PV) industry is facing significant development opportunities.The Yangtze River Delta (YRD) is the main agglomeration area for China′s PV industry and its leading enterprises.The study of the spatial distribution evolution and the influencing factors of the PV industry chain is of great significance.Based on the industrial and commercial registration data of PV enterprises, this paper constructed a spatial database of the PV industry chain in the YRD region from 2005 to 2023, by combining urban socio-economic statistical data to portray the spatio-temporal evolution characteristics of the key upstream, midstream and downstream of the PV industry chain.The driving mechanism of the PV industry distribution and location selection was explored by using the fixed-effects model.The results showed that: (1) The spatial agglomeration and diffusion of PV enterprises in the YRD coexisted from 2005 to 2023.A spatial evolution trend of “large diffusion and small agglomeration” was presented; (2) The links of the PV industry chain were mainly concentrated in Southern Jiangsu and Northeastern Zhejiang, showing the spatial evolution of “sporadic distribution - belt distribution” or “sporadic distribution - piece distribution”; (3) The spatial diffusion of the PV industry in YRD was mainly manifested in neighborhood diffusion and channel diffusion; (4) The key factors affecting the location of PV enterprises included the urban industrial and economic base, low-carbon development policy, scientific and technological innovation capacity, and the level of globalization.There existed significant spatio-temporal heterogeneity in the driving mechanism of the different factors, as well as significant differences in the spatial distribution response of the upstream, midstream, and downstream segments.The above results helped to enrich the empirical research on the distribution of strategic emerging industries in humanistic economic geography, and had reference value for promoting the collaborative innovation and high-quality development of PV industry in the YRD.