A scientific and reasonable protection zoning scheme of cultivated land was given by using the spatial autocorrelation analysis method, which combined the natural condition, utilize situation and economic level with the spatial characteristics of cultivated land. Firstly, the global autocorrelation was used to explore the global distribution of cultivated land quality in Gaoping City for further analysis. Then the local autocorrelation was used to study the local distribution of cultivated land quality in Gaoping City, regarding the cultivated land quality index as vitiate. Finally, a protection scheme was formulated based on the analysis results of the comprehensive quality. The main results were as follows: firstly, the cultivated land quality which included the natural condition, utilize situation and economic level exhibited significant aggregation of global spatial distribution in Gaoping City. Besides, the local distribution of cultivated land quality showed a regular pattern, which contained the HH type (high-high) and LL type (low-low) emerged as the shape of cluster, while the HL type (high-low) and LH type (low-high) were barely sporadic distributed in Gaoping City. At last, kinds of protection zoning were put forward according to the combination of comprehensive cultivated land quality index based on local spatial autocorrelation and actual situation, which would provide a reference for cultivated land protection in Gaoping City.