Abstract: According to 160 global distribution points of Xanthoceras sorbifolia Bunge and 19 ecological variables, four ecological niche models, including BIOCLIM, DOMAIN, GARP, and MAXENT, were used to predict the potential distribution areas of X. sorbifolia and analyze its ecological characteristics. The accuracies of the models were evaluated by receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curves. Results showed that the ecologically suitable area was mainly in the range of 30°N to 50°N, including northwest, northeast, and north China, and the most suitable area was primarily in the Loess Plateau in the west, including Shaanxi, Shanxi, Ningxia, Hebei, and Inner Mongolia. The model evaluation results proved that the four methods were reliable as the AUC values were all greater than 0.75. The ecological characteristics of X. sorbifolia were mean annual temperature of 1.9-16℃, mean monthly temperature range of 8.3-16℃, isothermality of 22-33, temperature seasonality of 7523-14198, max temperature in the warmest month of 20.1℃ to 33.5℃, annual precipitation of 37 mm to 952 mm, precipitation in the wettest month of 11 mm to 219 mm, precipitation in the driest month of 0 to 29 mm, and coefficient of variation in precipitation seasonality of 40-137. We concluded that the ecological suitable areas for X. sorbifolia were located in the Loess Plateau region in west China and rocky mountain areas in the north as well as northern regions of Xinjiang.