Abstract: Grasping the change rule and the distribution of rural settlements in farming-pastoral zone has significant meaning to rectifying residential areas, optimizing layout, and implementing rural revitalization strategic planning. This paper took Damao Banner of Baotou city in Inner Mongolia, a typical farming-pastoral ecotone in the north of Yinshan Mountain, as the study region, and we used historical data materials such as land cover types, toponymy records, scoio-economic data came from the Statistical Yearbook of Damao Banner in 1996, 2012 and 2016, based on Kernel density analysis and model of Gravity Migration to explore and reveal the spatial distribution characteristics and evolution of rural settlements. Meanwhile, its influencing factors mainly include elevation, slope, aspect, distance to water, distance to road, distance to towns, national culture, population and government policies, etc. We analyzed the intrinsic relationship between the spatial distribution of the rural settlements and the factors by using GIS (geographic information system) spatial analysis software. The results showed that: 1) the distribution characteristic of rural settlements in Damao Banner in 2012 was obvious, reaching a peak of 1.416/km2. From 1996 to 2016, the distribution center of Damao Banner' rural settlements moved to the southeast and gradually approached Bailingmiao Town. 2) The influence of DEM and slope on the distribution of rural settlements was inverted U-shaped. It increased first and then decreased gradually. The peak value of DEM was 1 400-1 600 m, and the peak value of slope was 3.056°-5.446°. The choice of aspect was gradually inclined to the south aspect, southwest aspect and the proportion increased year by year, but some rural settlements were still distributed on the shady aspect, for example north aspect and northeast aspect, which was affected by geographical environment, national culture, and government policy. The spatial distribution of the rural settlements of Damao Banner did not show obvious near-water characteristic in terms of the distance to water area, but they mostly distributed in 7-10 km away from the water. 3) The road distance showed obvious near-road orientation. In 2016, the number of rural settlements distributed within the range of 0-1 000 m from the road accounted for 98.77%, indicating that the roads and settlements had mutual influence and interaction. Traffic significantly changed the spatial pattern of the rural settlements, and had evident distance attenuation effect. The number of the spatial distribution of rural settlements occupied the largest proportion when it was 20-40 km away from the town in 2012 and 2016. It meant that the radiation effect of central town on rural settlements was limited to a certain extent, and the spatial distribution of rural settlements was far away from central town. In agricultural region and pastoral region of Damao Banner, the number of rural settlements had different characteristics with their population. In 1996 and 2016, the number of Mongolian population in the pastoral region was significantly positively correlated with the number of rural settlements. The Mongolian nomadic culture promoted the distribution of residential areas with a highly dispersed feature of "Giant Stars". Also government policies had an important impact on the spatial distribution and pattern of rural settlements in Damao Banner. Therefore, the results of this study can provide a reference for rectifying residential areas, optimizing layout, and implementing rural revitalization strategic planning in these ethnic areas.