Taking the Heihe River Basin as study area, based on the land use data and socioeconomic statistics from 1980 to 2020, constructing the production-living-ecological space classification system, this paper analyzes evolution characteristics of production-living-ecological space from the aspects of topography, towns and roads. Besides, the driving factors of production-living-ecological space is analyzed by using Geodetector. The results show that 1) the territorial space of the study area features obvious horizontal regional differences. Within the production-living-ecological space schema, the ecological space has occupied the absolute dominant position, while the production ecological space is mainly distributed in the agricultural oasis area in the middle reaches of the Heihe River Basin, and the production living space is scattered in the production ecological space. In the past 40 years, the production ecological space and production living space has steadily expanded, and the strong ecological space has increased with fluctuations, while the weak ecological space has continuously decreased. 2) The production-living-ecological space of the Heihe River Basin has significant vertical differences. The altitude of 1500 m and the slope of 5° are taken as the boundary of the production-living-ecological space. Below the boundary, the production ecological space, the production living space and the weak ecological space are concentrated; above the boundary, the strong ecological space are relatively concentrated. 3) The distribution of production-living-ecological space is significantly influenced by towns and roads, the production ecological space and the production living space tend to be distributed close to towns and roads, while the ecological space is mostly distributed in areas far away from towns and roads. 4) Natural geographical factors are the basic conditions for the formation and evolution of production-living-ecological space pattern. Socioeconomic factors are the key driving forces. Among them, the urbanization rate, urban scale and fixed asset investment are the main driving factors; the interaction of factors has significant synergistic enhancement effect, especially the interaction between urban scale and natural factors, total population and natural factors has the most significant impact on the evolution of the production-living-ecological space pattern. The results can provide reference for ecological protection and to achieve high-quality development pattern in the Heihe River Basin.