Abstract: Safeguarding and improving residents′ well-being is a central objective of Chinese-style modernization.Enhancing well-being through cultural and tourism integration is both a key initiative and strategic goal in building a strong tourism nation.Based on panel data from 108 prefecture-level cities in the Yangtze River Economic Belt (2006-2023), this study employed a Spatial Durbin Model to examine the spatial spillover effects of culture-tourism integration on residents′ Well-being.The main findings were as follows: (1) Both the level of culture-tourism integration and residents′ well-being remained generally low, with absolute disparities widening over time.In the early stages, a clear polarization emerged, manifesting a “Matthew effect” where strong regions grew stronger.However, this trend weakened in later years.(2) Culture-tourism integration exhibited a spatial pattern of low-value clustering and high-value dispersion, forming a “core-periphery” structure centered around provincial capitals.The residents′ well-being followed a “downstream-midstream-upstream” gradient, with Shanghai and Chongqing forming a “dual-core” spatial layout.The pattern reflected a clear influence of administrative hierarchy, with sub-dimensional well-being showing a stepwise decline from downstream to upstream areas.(3) There existed a significant spatial correlation between culture-tourism integration and residents′ well-being, with localized clusters dominated by H-H and L-L types.Integration exerted both significant positive direct and spatial spillover effects, i.e., a 1% increase in integration could cause a 0.373% rise in local well-being and a 0.238% rise in neighboring well-being.Among the dimensions of well-being, the impact followed the order of social well-being > economic well-being > environmental well-being.(4) The spillover effects displayed a marked regional heterogeneity.At the basin level, the upstream region experienced the strongest direct effect, while the downstream region benefited mostly from positive spillovers.At the urban cluster level, Dianzhong and Chengdu-Chongqing exhibited the largest direct effects, while the Yangtze River Delta and Chengdu-Chongqing showed significant positive spillover effects.