The increasing negative impact of urbanization on biodiversity underlines the importance of studies in this field. Therefore, the present study focused on the effects of population distribution on plant diversity in the Jinzhong Basin. Overall, 86 villages, 48 towns, and 9 cities in the county were selected, and sampling plots were set up for plant surveys at each site. The Gleason index, the Whittaker Beta index, and the Jaccard similarity index were employed to discover patterns in regional biodiversity, and independent-sample t-tests were used to compare the patterns of wild and cultivated plants. Along the village-town-city gradient, the species richness decreased for wild plants, but increased for cultivated plants. The total plant richness for this gradient showed a bell-shaped curve, and the β-diversity index consistently decreased. The floral similarity was lower in villages compared to towns and cities, while it was also lower in towns compared to cities. The common species in the villages, towns, and cities were Digitaria sanguinalis, Setaria viridis, Rosa chinensis, and Salix babylonica. Whereas most wild plants belonged to the families Gramineae and Asteraceae, most cultivated plants belonged to the families Rosaceae and Salicaceae. This result suggests that the differential urbanization development and the anthropogenic disturbance in the Jinzhong Basin are the crucial factors in explaining the pattern of biodiversity differentiation in this region. German scholar Wittig Rudiger stated that if urbanization really is the cause of homogenization, "pure" urban habitats should show a greater degree of homogenization than mixtures of urban and non-urban habitats. In this study, the "pure" urban habitats of build-up areas at city, town, and village level were affected by stronger, medium, and weaker urbanization, respectively.Furthermore, investigation of wild plants and cultivated plants, which are two plant categories with different anthropogenic disturbance, can signify the plant diversity status throughout the process of urbanization in the Jinzhong Basin. The wild plants in the built-up area of the villages experienced little anthropogenic disturbance, as well as little introduction of cultivated plants. This resulted in no significant decrease in total species richness for the villages. In the built-up area of the towns, wild plant species richness was affected by the process of urbanization, whereas no additional cultivated plants were introduced. Both these factors lead to the decrease of the total species richness here. For the built-up area of the cities, the rapid urban development significantly affected the growth and distribution of wild plants. Furthermore, afforestation caused a large number of cultivated plants to be introduced to the cities' built-up areas. Finally, anthropogenic disturbance can decrease environmental heterogeneity in the built-up areas, while increasing the species similarity of the greening plants. On one hand, these processes increase total species richness, whereas on the other hand, they result in the homogenization of the species in the area. The results of this study could be useful for future developments, as they can provide referential data to improve the rationality and effectiveness of protecting biological plant diversity.