Abstract: Taking the first batch of 96 national sports towns as research samples, this paper studied their distribution characteristics, equilibrium degree, distribution density and further studied the factors which affect the spatial distribution of sports towns with ArcGIS 10.2 spatial analysis, the nearest neighboring index, geographic concentration index, coefficient of variation, kernal density estimation and overlay analysis, etc. The results show that: (1) The first batch of national sports towns don't present a balanced distribution, but an aggregated distribution, which is highest around Beijing and Shanghai, but rare in the western region; (2) The spatial distribution of sports towns is mainly influenced by topographical factor and climate factor, population density, economic condition and transportation network.

Key words: sports town, spatial distribution, nearest neighboring index, kernal density estimation, coefficient of variation