Abstract: It is crucial to understand the spatial patterns of different conservation objects and their interrelationships in the construction of protected area system. As the Asia Water Tower, the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau is important and unique in biodiversity and ecosystem services, with nearly 35% of its land area covered by current protected areas. The spatial rationality of protected areas plays an important role in biodiversity conservation and ecological security in China. Therefore, with the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau as a case, we systematically evaluate the spatial distribution, interrelationships and clustering patterns of important species, priority ecosystems, four key ecosystem services, natural landscapes and natural relics by utilizing model simulation, statistical analysis, spatial analysis, and cluster analysis. We then propose optimized suggestions for the classification and spatial distribution of types of protected areas based on these assessments. The main findings are as follows. ① There is a significant synergistic relationship between species, ecosystems, water retention, soil retention and carbon sequestration. However, there is trade-offs between sandstorm prevention and the other conservation objects with exception of ecosystems. Natural relics and natural landscapes have a relatively low correlation with the other conservation objects. ②The conservation objects can be clustered into five representative categories: important for multiple objects, important for ecosystem, important for sandstorm prevention, less important for multiple objects, and general. These categories exhibit significant differences in composition and importance of conservation objects. ③ Among existing nature reserves, scenic spots, forest parks, wetland parks and geoparks, the clustering patterns are all dominated by the categories of "less important for multiple objects" and "important for multiple objects". The former accounts for 50.8%, 53.0%, 73.9%, 38.2%, and 60.0% of total protected areas, respectively. The latter accounts for 19.9%, 29.0%, 18.0% and 12.0% respectively. It indicates the high comprehensiveness and importance for most of the protected areas. However, 13.6% of the protected areas still belong to the category of general, with room for adjustment. We suggest to clarify the categories of existing protected areas by combining the cluster patterns of different conservation objects. Protected areas with main clustering categories of "important for multiple objects" and "less important for multiple objects" can be adjusted to national parks and nature reserves. This can improve the protection efficiency of multiple conservation objects. For protected areas with important ecosystem, we suggest adjusting to national parks with large area of high authenticity and integrity, while the remaining protected areas to be nature parks such as forest parks, wetland parks and desert parks according to the types of ecosystems. The category of "important for sandstorm prevention" shall be given priority to be ecological function protected areas. These results can provide support for the scientific classification of protected area.