Abstract: In order to clarify the quality of urban water environment in the Yellow River Basin, 68 urban built-up areas in the basin were selected as research areas. The quality of water environment and the main pollution indicators of each city in 2022 were analyzed, the discharge loads of chemical oxygen demand (COD), total nitrogen (TN), total phosphorus (TP), and ammonia nitrogen (NH₃-N) of urban living sources, urban non-point sources, and industrial sources in the basin were estimated, and the problems and the causes of the urban water environment were analyzed. The results showed that the quality of water environment in the Yellow River Basin had improved year by year in the recent years, but the water quality of cross-border sections and tributary inlet sections had a high rate of non-compliance, with water quality standards. The water environment quality of cities in the basin had significant differences, and the water environment quality of cities in the middle and lower reaches of the basin had outstanding problems. Urban living source was the main source of pollution, with COD, total nitrogen, total phosphorus, ammonia nitrogen pollution emissions of 531 100, 214 000, 44 500, 151 300 t/a, respectively. Due to the reasons such as the lag in construction of supporting water environment infrastructure, industrial enterprise pollution, urban non-point source pollution, the improvement of urban water environment quality was greatly restricted. Based on the characteristics of the urban water environment, it was recommended that the cities in the basin should implement the integrated management project of domestic, surface and industrial sources, focusing on advancing domestic wastewater collection and treatment infrastructure, strengthening the management of non-point sources and the use of rainwater resources, promoting the transformation of the industrial structure, and vigorously driving the green transformation.