Abstract: On the basis of land cover data in 1987, 2000, 2008 and 2013, meteorological data and the social-economic data in the same period of Yihe River basin, the landscape pattern change and its driving mechanism in this area were analyzed at different spatial-temporal scales by applying the theory of landscape ecology and using tools such as ArcGIS 10.2, Fragstats 4.2 and SPSS 17.0. Results showed that between 1987 and 2013, the spatial structure of landscape in the study area was changed obviously. The areas of forest land, grassland, reservoirs and construction land increased, while the areas of cultivated land and canals had a trend of “decrease-increase-decrease”. From 1987 to 2008, cultivated land was mainly transformed to construction land, and from 2008 to 2013, the transformation among cultivated land, forest land and grassland was significant. The variation of landscape spatial pattern was concentrated in the valley plains and hilly areas with elevations under 550 m. But as the disturbance of human activities were much stronger, landscape patterns in mountain areas began to change. The analysis of landscape pattern index showed that cultivated land and forest land had the greatest largest patch index (LPI) and cohesion index (COHESION). Between 1987 and 2013, the number of patches (NP) in Yihe River basin increased rapidly. The landscape division index (DIVISION), Shannon’s evenness index (SHEI) and Shannon’s diversity index (SHDI) all showed the trend of “increase-slight decrease-increase”, which indicated that the landscape pattern tended to be unstable, and landscape heterogeneity increased. Social-economic development and the population growth were main driving factors of the transformation of cultivated land and unused land into construction land. The rising temperature and evapotranspiration directly caused the change of water area in this river basin, and the policy was the fundamental reason for the changes in the structures of forest land and grassland.