Abstract: Optimizing the business environment at the county level plays a crucial role in the high-quality development of the national economy. However, existing research often overlooks the evaluation of the county-level business environment. This paper focuses on the less developed province of Gansu, taking the county as the research unit and adhering to the principle of "optimizing the business environment according to local conditions." Based on eight sub-environments including public services, human resources, market environment, financial services, innovation environment, legal environment, government affairs environment, and ecological environment, an evaluation index system for the county-level business environment in Gansu is constructed. The research results indicate that, firstly, overall, the leading effect of regional "top" is prominent, but development is extremely uneven; the overall level of the business environment in the province needs urgent improvement, with significant disparities between regions; the level of the business environment exhibits strong core-periphery structural characteristics.Secondly,from the perspective of sub-environments,human resources, administrative environment, and ecological environment are relatively strong areas; innovation environment and financial services are notable weak links; the coordination of sub-environment development varies significantly across regions.Thirdly, among the five major geographical zones, the central region boasts the best business environment, followed by the Hexi region, then the Longdong region, with Longnan and Gannan regions trailing behind.Finally, targeted policy recommendations are proposed based on the research results. The research findings provide a scientific basis and practical path for breaking through the bottlenecks of high-quality development in underdeveloped western provinces, ecologically fragile areas and multi-ethnic regions, and implementing differentiated regional policies.