Abstract: Cities are the core carrier of the high-quality development of the Yellow River Basin. Scientific analysis of the temporal-spatial changes of tourism urbanization level in the Yellow River Basin can provide a scientific reference for the realization of the high-quality development in the Yellow River Basin. Based on methodologies such as spatial autocorrelation, Markov-chain, spatial Markov-chain and geographical weighted regression, this paper analyzes the spatial-temporal evolutionary characteristics and heterogeneity of influencing factors in tourism urbanization level of cities in the Yellow River Basin during 2005 to 2018. The results show that: (1)The level of tourism urbanization has steadily increased in the Yellow River Basin, but the characteristic of regional spatial differentiation is significant, among which, Shaanxi Province can maintain its leading position, Shanxi Province has great potential for tourism urbanization, but the characteristic of tourism urbanization in Inner Mongolia and Ningxia provinces is not significant enough. (2)The overall Moran’s I index is positive, that is, the level of tourism urbanization in the Yellow River Basin has a significant positive correlation in spatial distribution, and shows the characteristic of spatial agglomeration, with prominent neighborhood effects. (3) The horizontal spatial spillover effect of tourism urbanization level in those regions is significant. The convergence of spatial clubs which are “the high clustering, the high drives the low” is relatively prominent. There are significant spatial-temporal inertia and path dependence in different types of cities transferring. (4) Industrial structural level, per capita consumption level and degree of tourism industry agglomeration are the primary factors driving the development of tourism urbanization level, and each presents significant spatial-temporal heterogeneity.