Ecological occupiability refers to the attribute of ecological space when it was occupied by human being. The space is of low occupiability if the whole ecosystem was damaged from the perspective of structure and function for the occupation. The structure, function and its connections with surroundings are of great importance in determining the ecological occupiability. The least cost distance indicated the work or cost from the source to the destination through units with different resistance. The resistance value indicates the suitability of certain landscape units for distribution of ecological space. Adopting Xijiang River Economic Belt (XREB) for a case study, we designed the resistance of different rasters with a size of 90×90 m² based on land use of XREB and built resistance surface. Using nature reserve as sources, we carried out calculation on minimum cumulative resistance from sources to destination through cost-distance model of ArcGIS. The ecological occupiability of landscape unit and zoning of XREB were calculated and established accordingly. Results indicated that the low-, lower-middle-, middle-, higher-middle-, and high-value zones of ecological occupiability accounted for 12.17%, 18.75%, 38.55%, 28.69% and 1.84% of the whole study area, respectively. Moreover, most of the construction land distributed at higher-middle-value zone, accounted for 55.29%, 58.73% and 63.86% of the urban & town land, rural land and industrial & mining land. The distributions of the rest parts of the three types of the construction land were different. Most of the rest of the urban & town land was located in high-value zones; while most of the rest of the rural and industrial & mining lands was located in middle-value zones. Minute quantity of the rural and industrial & mining lands was located in nature reserve. The high-value zone has been already developed intensively, and the optimization of spatial structure and function should be carried out in the future. The higher-middle value zone should be the focus for future urbanization and industrialization, while the middle-value zone could be developed but to a within certain intensity. Ecological construction should be the main task of the lower-middle-and low-value zones. We concluded that the analysis of ecological occupiability based on the least-cost distance model could explain the distribution of various types of construction lands and spatial pattern of ecological space. Although the analysis and corresponding zoning were affected by the spatial distribution of source, extent and scale, it is of great significance for guiding the regional development and establishment of ecological security pattern.