Abstract:Pollution intensive industries are key fields for the interdisciplinary study, such as economic geography, industrial economics, resource and environmental management. With the conflict upgrading between economic growth and environmental pollution, the distribution and influencing factors of pollution intensive industries have become the focus in this field for the past years. In this paper, the spatial evolution features of pollution intensive industries are summarized from three scales, namely, national, regional and urban scales; in addition, the existing research achievements on the influencing factors of pollution intensive industrial distribution are also sorted, analyzed and summarized from the three perspectives of environmental regulation, government gaming and traditional location factors. According to research findings, because of cross-disciplines, problems complexity and regional differences, the research on pollution intensive industries distribution shows significant differences in the aspects of scales, perspectives and methods, not to mention the wide differences and disputes in the research conclusions. From the current research, empirical research methods and perspectives are becoming diversified, however, the model construction still needs to be strengthened. In the future, multidisciplinary exchanges and integration needs to be strengthened further, and the theoretical integration concerning the distribution and influencing factors of pollution intensive industries also requires reinforcement.