The Yellow River Basin is a complex spatial system integrating ecology, economy, culture and society. The research in this paper takes the innovation of cultural heritage in the basin as the fundamental orientation, and analyzes the influence mechanism of digitization on the innovative development of Yellow River culture through GIS. The inter-regional heterogeneity of the digital transformation of the Yellow River culture is examined through the use of the kernel density function. To examine the spatial correlation between the Yellow River basin and the development of cultural digitalization innovations, the gravity model is utilized. The Yellow River cultural industry’s innovation adaption capacity is measured through two indicators: innovation input capacity and innovation absorption capacity. Based on the analysis of the spatial distribution pattern and the trend of spatio-temporal change, it is tentative to observe that there is a possible spatial correlation between the two. The results show that the field energy variation of the Yellow River cultural memory space ranges from 0.0928 to 0.5384, and the distribution has significant spatial dependence. The logarithm of the digitization level of the Yellow River culture in 2019 is mainly concentrated around -2.2, and the overall digital development of cities along the Yellow River has not been polarized. A new framework and reference for protecting cultural heritage and promoting civilization innovation in the Yellow River basin is provided by this paper.