As healthful ecological resources, negative air ions are more and more concerned along with the booming of ecotourism. This paper focuses on the research progresses in the negative air ion concentration distribution characteristics and its correlation with meteorological elements in mountain tourist areas for recent decades in China. The results of many researches show that the distribution of negative air ions in mountain tourist areas has obvious daily and seasonal variations, and its spatial variation also has certain regularity. The distribution changes of negative air ion concentration have greater relevance with meteorological factors such as wind speed, air temperature, relative humidity, solar radiation, weather phenomena, etc. However, due to the differences in the monitoring data sources, observations time, sample size, etc., the conclusions on negative air ion concentration distribution characteristics and its correlation with the meteorological factors are not consistent. The negative air ion monitoring equipment should be gradually standardized in order to ensure the reliability of monitoring data in the future, while taking advantage of the years’ continuous observations to carry the study of correlation between negative air ions and meteorological factors, which can provide a theoretical basis for negative air ion concentration forecasts.