Wetlands provide a host of goods and services, including water quality maintenance, agricultural production, fisheries, and recreation.However, they are also under an increasing threat in many parts of the world.Inventory and monitoring of wetlands is fundamental to conservation efforts.At watershed scale, a credible quantitative inventory of wetland resources can support baseline assessment of the status of watershed wetland resources, and monitoring of long term trends in ecological characteristics of wetlands.In this paper, Beijing-1micro-satellite remote sensing data of 2006 were used to investigate the wetlands distribution in the Yellow River Basin(YRB).Results showed that the total wetland area is 2 513 481 ha.Palustrine and riverine wetlands comprise the bulk of the basin wetlands, accounting for 45.0% and 36.2%, respectively.The wetlands are mainly distributed in the plateau valley of the source area, river floodplains in the middle and lower reaches and the coastal wetlands in the Yellow River Delta.For lacustrine and riverine wetlands, physiognomy is the main factor affecting the wetland formation, while climate, represented by the ratio of dryness to wetness, has direct relation with local hydrological conditions, and is more important in influencing palustrine wetlands pattern.Since most part of the basin belongs to arid and semi-arid climate, most wetlands, except those in the source area, mainly depend on the Yellow River supply since local precipitation can only partly satisfy the ecological water requirement.In addition, conflicts for water resources arise not only between wetlands and life and production, but also in different parts of the basin, for example, the upper and lower reaches.It is concluded that management of the limited water resources should involve rational allocation of water resources.For the basin managers, it is very important to realize the ecological values of different wetlands.Considering the water resources availability in the future, wetlands in each subregion should be given different priorities for restoration and conservation.