Abstract: The Mesozoic-Cenozoic Yellow Sea Basin is a continental rift basin developed on the pre-Indosinian basement. The formation mechanism of the basin is discussed in this article, on the basis of geological features, sedimentary sequences and geotectonic history. As a result of the formation and evolution of geothermal plume in the eastern North China, the merging and accretion of the North China block and the Yangtze block at the end of Indosinian turned to a sequence of events of geothermal plume evolution-formation of the mantle branch structure-regional extensional rifting in the Yellow Sea area.Therefore, the Yellow Sea is a part of the eastern basin-range system and owe it's origin and evolution to the constraints of the geothermal plume evolution in the eastern North China.