Objectives Nature education plays a crucial role in national parks by promoting their value and supporting the goals of public participation and shared expericens. How to scientifically evaluate the spatial suitability of nature education with the balance between nature conservation and wise use of nature resources under the premise of environmental conditions, facilities and resources, accessibility and safety, and use it to guide its orderly implementation is an important part of the spatial planning of national parks.

Methods This paper focused on the Gutianshan area of Qianjiangyuan National Park. It constructed a spatial suitability evaluation system for nature education, considering two dimensions: state indexes of environmental conditions and functional indexes of resources and facilities. Spatial statistical methods, including Keynel Density Analysis and Cold-Hotspot Analysis, were employed to assess the existing spatial pattern and suitability for nature education. The study also provided optimization recommendations for the exisiting nature education trails.

Results The findings revealed that: (1) The suitable areas for nature education in the Gutianshan area were mainly distributed in the central and southern parts of the study area, especially along the valley road from Gutian Villa to Gutianshan Gate and in the southern low mountain area; (2) The spatial pattern evaluation showed significant spatial clustering characteristics, in which the hotspots were mainly distributed in the central and southern parts, forming two corridors of spatial hotspots. (3) By comparing the spatial suitability evaluation results with higher-level planning contents, recommendations were proposed for improving the nature education function and route optimization in terms of scope contraction, boundary buffer and hub creation.

Conclusions This study has preliminarily developed a methodology for evaluating the spatial suitability of nature education in national parks characterised by the mountain forest ecosystem. It also provided recommendations for future applications in national parks with different ecosystems from the perspective of objective, process and tailored design, which was of practical guidance significance for optimizing the spatial pattern of nature education in China’s national parks.