The spatial pattern and trend of vegetation coverage during the period 1982-2012 in the source regions where three rivers flowing parallelly (Three Parallel Rivers region) are obtained and discussed based on the normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) data from Advanced Very High Resolution Radiometer (AVHRR) and Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS). Combined with the temperature and precipitation data, the responses of vegetation cover to the climate change are also presented. The results showed that: 1) The spatial distribution of vegetation coverage were higher in the south and east, and lower in the north and west along with the spatial pattern of heat in Three Parallel Rivers region, and it was higher below the altitude of 4 000 m in the region. 2) During the study period, the vegetation coverage presented an increasing trend with a rate of 0.002/(10 a) in Three Parallel Rivers region. Areas with altitude about 4 600 m or low vegetation coverage showed obvious increase trend. The area with significant increase trend occupies 36.4% of the study area and mainly distributes in Tuotuo River basin, Nujiang basin (except the area of headwater) and the southeast of the study area. 3) Vegetation cov- erage in the study area has a more significant correlation with temperature compared with precipitation. In particu- lar, vegetation coverage on plateau showed a significantly positive correlation with temperature, which exhibited a strong thermal limitation.