China's grotto tourism resources are extremely rich, have high tourism value, and are widely distributed. There is an urgent need for scientific development and planning. Currently, some grotto tourism areas, due to the lack of scientific planning, have ignored the development laws of grottoes or religious sites themselves, only pursuing short-term interests in the present. During the development process, they have not taken protection into account, resulting in many problems and irreparable losses, and causing varying degrees of damage to the religious atmosphere and the surrounding beautiful natural environment. At present, the relevant theoretical research on grotto tourism has not received widespread attention from the domestic academic community. Most scholars basically conduct research from a single perspective. For example, architectural scholars mostly study from the perspectives of architectural layout or individual design, religious scholars mostly study from the perspective of religious doctrines, tourism scholars mostly study from the perspectives of the evaluation, development or management of grotto tourism value, and environmental scholars mostly study from the perspective of grotto protection. At the research level, most studies focus on the grotto tourism of a certain place or region, while there are few studies on the grotto tourism resources at the national level, and no research has been seen on the spatial distribution of grotto tourism resources in China. Therefore, this study intends to statistically analyze the grotto tourism resources that belong to the key cultural relics protection units at or above the provincial level in China, and use quantitative methods to reveal their spatial distribution characteristics, providing theoretical guidance for the optimization of spatial structure and sustainable development in the future development and utilization of grotto tourism resources in China.