Abstract: Water resources carrying capacity is an important index that is used to measure the sustainable social and economic development. This paper selects the evaluation indexes of the water resources, social, economic and ecological environment system, and then establishes regional comprehensive evaluation model of water resources carrying capacity. Based on the analysis of the indexes of economic pressure, population pressure, carrying pressure and coordination, we get a comprehensive evaluation for the carrying capacity and the water resources utilization. In addition, the temporalspatial distribution characteristics of water resources carrying capacity in Yunnan Province are explored. The results showed that: the spatial distributions of water resources are not coordinated with the layout of economic development and population in Yunnan, most Central Yunnan Province are classified as the lightly overloaded area or close to overloaded areas, which is due to a great number of population and relatively prosperous economy, but less water resources. On the other hand, with the rapid population growth and economic development, the stress of regional water resources carrying capacity gradually increased during these study period years. For example, Zhaotong, located in the Northeastern Yunnan Province, turned into the edge of the overloaded area from the suitable area of water resources carrying capacity. In addition, the water resources carrying capacity of Dehong in the Southwestern Yunnan Province transformed to suitable carrying capacity from the surplus state of carrying capacity.  In general, water resources development and utilization in Yunnan Province is still lower, and the problem of water resources shortage, which mainly results from engineering water shortage, is more and more severe. In the future, the construction and operation of the hydraulic engineering, especially the Central Yunnan Diversion Project, would effectively alleviate the overloading problem of water resources in Yunnan Province.