Abstract: Promoting the development of the Yangtze River economic belt is a major strategy that concerns the overall development of China. As one of the strategic core areas of national resource security protection, the shale gas, manganese, vanadium, titanium, tungsten, tin, antimony, rare earth, lithium, phosphorus and some other minerals in the Yangtze River Economic Belt occupy an important position in China, but as it has been affected by the long time high-intensity exploration, the development of mineral resources in the Yangtze River Economic Belt is faced with several problems, such as the layout and structure is not always reasonable, the scale and intensification level and The overall utilization efficiency is generally low, furthermore, the contradiction between mineral resource development and environmental protection is relatively prominent. Under the strategic guidance of “grasping the major protection and no large-scale development”, it is imperative to optimize the spatial pattern of mineral resources development and promote the growth of high-quality mining industry in the Yangtze River Economic Belt. Starting from the perspective of functional zoning, based on the analysis of the characteristics of the mineral resources in the Yangtze River Economic Belt and the above problems, this study considered factors such as the mineral resources background, the importance of the ecological environment, the degree of transportation dominance and water shortage, and the needs of regional economic development. A functional zoning indicator system targeting to optimize the spatial pattern of the mining industry has been constructed. Taking county-level administrative units as the unit, and using the discriminant method, the Yangtze River Economic Belt has been divided into five functional zones, namely key avoidance zones, poverty alleviation development zones, mining mitigation zones, restricted development zones, and moderate development zones. Environment protection, resource poverty alleviation, high-end guidance, overall coordination, and green transformation are the main tasks of the five functional zones to promote the optimization of the spatial structure. In addition, in response to the characteristics of each kind of functional zone, this paper put forward different policy proposals.