As an important form of the new urbanization, tourist towns have become an emerging hotspot for rural revitalization and upgrading of the tourism industry, which has attracted considerable attention. Based on the geographic coordinates of tourist towns, this study uses the nearest neighbor index, geographic concentration index, location entropy and other research methods to quantitatively analyze the spatial distribution characteristics of 289 tourist towns in the Wuling Mountain area and summarize the influencing factors. The results show that the number of tourist towns varies by region, as does the level of tourism development. The distribution of tourist towns generally shows a certain degree of geographical concentration, forming multidensity centers and a large number of small settlements. The tourist towns are obviously distributed along the traffic routes due to the good traffic accessibility and different tourist towns have their own distribution types. Regarding the influencing factors, the spatial distribution of tourist towns is jointly determined by geographic environment, social factors, tourism resources and culture and policies. By analyzing the spatial characteristics of tourist towns and their influencing factors in the Wuling Mountain area, this article provides ideas for exploring the temporal and spatial differentiation of tourist towns around the world and constructing synergistic mechanisms of factors between regions.