Abstract: Promoting the regional strategy of ecological protection and high-quality development in the Yellow River Basin is an important choice for high-quality development in China during the ‘14th five-year plan’ period and beyond. Clarifying the spatiotemporal evolution trends and upgrading path of ecological resilience of the Yellow River Basin are of great significance for further strategic and practical development. Taking 49 cities in 7 city clusters in the Yellow River Basin as the research objects, based on the concept of ‘natural-economical-social complex ecosystem’, an urban ecological resilience assessment system was constructed, and a 3D space vector model was used to measure the urban ecological resilience of the city clusters in the Yellow River Basin. GIS technology was used to analyze its spatiotemporal evolution features. Moran′s I was used to reveal the degree of spatial correlation of the urban ecological resilience in the Yellow River Basin city cluster in the entire study area, and spatial autocorrelation characteristics of local areas with cities as units. Then the STIRPAT model was used to reveal the influencing factors that affect the improvement of the urban ecological resilience and propose optimization plans. The results show that: (1) The urban ecological resilience in the Yellow River Basin shows a fluctuating downward trend from 2011 to 2020, and the toughness value decreased from 0.224 to 0.216. From the perspective of city cluster, the urban ecological resilience in the Yellow River Basin shows the characteristics of agglomeration and contiguity, and the differences among the city clusters are obvious. The cities with the highest resilience ratings include Xi´an in the Guanzhong City Cluster Group, Zhengzhou in the Central Plains City Group and Jinan in the Shandong Peninsula City Group. The cities with higher resilience ratings include Dongying and Zibo in the Shandong Peninsula City Group, Hohhot and Baotou in the Hubao and Eyu City Group, Yinchuan and Shizuishan in the Ningxia Riverside City Group, and Lanzhou in the Lanxi City Group. The cities with the lowest toughness rating include Yuncheng and Linfen in Guanzhong City Group, Jinzhong City Group, Xinzhou and Luliang in Jinzhong City Group; and the cities with lower toughness rating are Haidong and Dingxi in Lanxi City Group. (2) From 2011 to 2020, the urban ecological resilience in the Yellow River Basin showed a positive spatial correlation. The Global Moran′s I value increased from 0.217 to 0.231, and the degree of agglomeration increased slightly. The local spatial auto-correlation of four types of agglomerations is more spatially stable, and has little change in volume structure. (3) Per capita GDP and regional trade openness have positive contributions to the urban ecological resilience in the Yellow River Basin, while total population, proportion of non-agricultural population, energy consumption per unit GDP, proportion of scientific and technological investment, completion of real estate investment, and average local fiscal revenue have a negative effect on urban ecological resilience in the Yellow River Basin. The research shows that the cities with relatively low urban ecological resilience values in the Yellow River Basin are distributed in some cities of the Lanxi City Group, Jinzhong City Group and Guanzhong City Group. The above-mentioned cities need to put forward optimization plans for population, economy, technology and land, and continue to promote the construction of urban ecological resilience. In the future, urban ecological resilience should be promoted by rationally guiding population flow, promoting green trade, developing low-carbon technologies and promoting balanced urban development.