Abstract: In the context of industrial transfer and transformation and upgrading, the spatial distribution and transfer of manufacturing has gradually become a hot topic in geography research. Based on the research data of China’s manufacturing industry sales value and number of employees in 2008 and 2016, the application of location entropy, hotspot analysis, Theil indices, dynamic agglomeration index and other methods to explore the evolution and transfer situation of China’s manufacturing industry spatial pattern since the financial crisis. The study found that: (1) China’s manufacturing space distribution has strong spatial and temporal heterogeneity, labor-intensive and capital-intensive manufacturing industries, technology-intensive and knowledge-intensive manufacturing industries show an obvious spatial differentiation pattern that the labor-intensive and capital-intensive manufacturing industries present a pattern of “dense in the west and sparse in the east”, but the technology-intensive and knowledge-intensive manufacturing industries present a pattern of “dense in the east and sparse in the west” respectively, and the spatial agglomeration situation of different types of manufacturing industry also have significant differences; (2) In the eastern region, the unbalanced development of most manufacturing industries, such as tobacco products and chemical fibers, are more prominent. It has a greater impact on the spatial distribution of manufacturing between inter-regional and intra-regional in China, while the central and western regions are relatively small, but there are gradually expanding trend; (3) The main body of manufacturing transfer is labor-intensive and capital-intensive manufacturing industries, the direction of transfer is from the east to the central and western regions, and the transfer level has a higher gradient. The study will help enrich the theory of spatial distribution and transfer of China’s manufacturing industry, and provide reference for the high-quality development of China’s economy and industry.