Dwellings in eastern Sichuan have been well preserved as one of the few settlement landscapes in China. The preservation and research on dwellings in this area play an important role in China's cultural ecology and in studying the conservation of its biodiversity. Focusing on the traditional settlements in eastern Sichuan, this paper aims to provide the theoretical basis for the reasonable ecological adaptability and spatial evolvement of the traditional settlement. We explore the construction of traditional settlements' spatial pattern and the factors driving this special pattern from the perspective of modern ecological adaptability. As this study shows, traditional settlements actually reflect natural geographical elements in ecological adaptation as well as the integrity of the ecosystem. The site of the traditional settlement consists of such environmental elements as mountains, rivers, roads, and pools, which constitutes the ideal settlement model. In fact, the cultural landscape in traditional settlements is a sort of initial adaptation to the physical and geographical environment and compensates for the inadequacy of the original natural environment via the construction of "feng shui lin." From the perspective of modern ecology, the surrounding forests do not only provide defense from windstorms and conserve the soil, but they also maintain biodiversity and form a complete ecosystem, combining human and other biological and environmental elements. The house type of traditional settlement buildings embodies its unique local characteristics, and reflects the transition from worshipping nature to fitting into nature. The traditional settlement is an artificial ecosystem, in which human actions play a key role in influencing the natural environment, while the flow of resources acts as the lifeblood, and society and culture function as the main and collateral channels. Economy, culture and regime supplement each other to form the underlying power of the social system. Cultural factors mainly come from the pursuit of human spiritual needs; institutional factors reflect people's relationship inside and outside of the settlement; economic factors mostly stem from human survival needs.