There were about 816 species linolenic acid plant resources which belong to 446 genera and 116 families in China,and their oil and linolenic acid contents of seeds were higher than 10%.In this paper,distribution patterns of linolenic acid plant resources in China and its relationship with climatic and geographical factors were investigated based on flora listsin largescale,coupled with principal component analysis.The results show that:1)Labiatae,Euphorbiaceae,Fabaceae,Rosaceae,Brassicaceae and Cucurbitaceae families have abundant linolenic acid plant resource species.2)The region species richness of linolenic acid resource plants showed trend of descend around a center (the Southwestern China).3)The altitude species richness showed unimodal pattern that increased first and then decreased with the increase of altitude,with the maximum value appeared at the height of about 900 m.4)The climate factors significantly affected the distribution of linolenic acid plant resources.The relative humidity,annual average temperature and annual precipitation,were positively associated with species richness.In addition,there were negative correlations between species richness and Latitude,annual radiation quantity,mean altitude.5)China was divided into 10 distribution areas of linolenic acid resource plants by cluster analysis.Above results partly revealed the distribution characteristics of linolenic acid resource plants in China.