Abstract:The upstream region accounts for 55.4%, 33.2%, and 23.3% of the area, population, and GDP of the Yangtze River Economic Belt respectively. The level of high-quality development of the upstream region is closely associated with the success or failure of the national strategic objectives of the Yangtze River Economic Belt. Through analyzing the important role of the upstream area in maintaining the lifeline of the Yangtze River, ensuring the supply of strategic resources, maintaining the ecological base, strengthening spatial connections, and expanding the consumer market, authors summarize the tough challenges faced by the upstream region, such as traditional path dependence, polarization of urban structure, regional disparity, low green-capital conversion, and inadequate development quality. In the process of promoting the goal of high-quality development in the upstream region, we argue that it is an important strategy to build a multi-scale adaptation system for land space, to narrow the sharp differentiation between the first and the last grades of urban system, to fill in the depression on the edge of Chengdu-Chongqing Economic Circle, to clarify the economic categories based on ecological capital, and to bridge an cooperation mechanism between mainstream and tributaries for highquality development.