Abstract: Yangtze River Economic Zone, which includes 11 provinces (cities) of Shanghai, Jiangsu, Zhejiang, Anhui, Jiangxi, Hubei, Hunan, Sichuan, Chongqing, Yunnan and Guizhou, is an important economic development area in China, and the long-term safety and reliable storage of oil and gas resources is very important for the sustainable development of this region. According to the demand of construction planning and layout of strategic oil storage and gas storage base in Yangtze River Economic Zone, on the basis of fully collecting and utilizing the previous geological survey and research results, the authors comprehensively researched and analyzed the rock salt mines in the study area. Hierarchy structure model was built to evaluate the suitability of salt cave storages construction. Except Shanghai and Guizhou, the rock salt deposits were found in the 9 provinces (cities) of Yangtze River Economic Zone. The main salt-forming age was Sinian, Triassic, Cretaceous and Paleogene. The range of salt-forming basins is 0.29~10 000 km², with accumulated salt layers thickness of 3~1 050 m, and the ore body burial depth is 40~3400 m. Nacl content of ores is 20%~99.86%, and the rocks of top-bottom plate and interlayer of orebody are mainly mudstone, powder sandy mudstone and muddy powder sandstone. Geological survey shows that most of the underground salt caves in the region are far away from earthquake belt and have stable tectonic background, which can be used as oil storage. According to the sealing and safety of gas storage, 6 salt mines such as Jintan Basin in Jiangsu are of moderate buried depth and better geological conditions, which are suitable for the construction of salt cave gas storage. Regional areas in 14 basins such as Huai’an Basin in Jiangsu can also be built for natural gas storage. 11 salt mines such as Dianjiang, Chongqing, are of larger buried depth, which are also suitable for salt cave storages of natural gas, while their construction costs may increase. Some layers of 21 salt mines such as Lixiang, Hunan, are of shallow buried depth, but their deeper salt layers space should be selected. It is suggested that the salt caverns can be exploited first in the salt mine of Jintan, Huai’an, Zhaoji and Fengxian in Jiangsu Province, Qingjiang and Huichang in Jiangxi Province, and Yunying, Tianmen Xiaoban and Qianjiang in Hubei Province.