Abstract: The paper aims to strengthen the effective protection and rational exploitation of subalpine meadows in Shanxi, and thus prevent their degradation. The authors took Wutai Mountain in the northern part, Lvliang Mountain in the middle part and Zhongtiao Mountain in the southern part of Shanxi as the study areas, and investigated the species diversity of subalpine meadow communities in horizontal and vertical directions to explore the variability of species diversity of subalpine meadows with longitude, latitude and altitude in Shanxi. The results showed that: (1) in the horizontal pattern, species diversity indices had a high value in medium longitude, together with low values in low and middle longitudes and latitudes, respectively; in addition, the Simpson index and Margalef index had significant differences with variations of latitudes and longitudes (P <0.05), however, the Pielou index had no significant difference with latitudes and longitudes (P >0.05), the Shannon index was significantly different with longitudes (P <0.05) and had no significant difference with latitudes (P >0.05); (2) in the vertical pattern, the Simpson index and Margalef index showed high and low values at middle and high altitudes, respectively (P <0.05), the Pielou index and Shannon index trended to decrease with altitudes (P >0.05). Therefore, the species diversity of subalpine meadows conforms to the pattern of“mid-domain effect”in the spatial differentiation in Shanxi.