Abstract: The mountainous areas in northwest Yunnan Province are unique ethnic minority settlement areas in China. In this study, the settlement landscape of multi-ethnic gathering areas in the northwest mountainous region of Yunnan Province was selected as the research object, and the characteristic factors were extracted by ArcGIS spatial statistics, and the distribution types of ethnic settlements were classified by second-order cluster analysis. The results show that: (1) Livelihood strategy, annual precipitation, and ethnic composition all had important influences on settlement distribution pattern. (2) The ethnic settlements in the mountainous areas of northwest Yunnan could be divided into two distinct distribution types: agricultural humid settlements and mountainous semi-agricultural and semi-pastoral dry settlements, accounting for 58.49% and 41.51% respectively. (3) The livelihood strategy of ethnic settlements were almost farming (97.55%), with an average annual rainfall of 800 mm to 1400 mm. The semi-agricultural and semi-pastoral dry settlements were primarily distributed in areas with average annual precipitation ranging from 400 mm to 1000 mm, and the livelihood strategis were uniformly semi-agricultural/semi-pastoral (100.00%). These results provide scientific foundation for spatial restoration and utilization of traditional vernacular dwellings, scientific planning of new urbanization ethnic settlements, efficient reconstruction of settlement courtyard space layout, rural human settlements improvement and ecological environment protection in the region.