Waterfront resources are important and special kind of natural resources in the marginalarea between land and water. The Yangtze River, the longest river in China, is not only rich inwaterfront resources, but also has favorable development conditions with great potentiality. Aided bylarge-scale underwater topographic map, the major factors of the waterfront resources in the middleand lower reaches of the Yangtze River, such as the stability, the water depth and the naturalconditions for port construction, are assessed in this paper respectively on the basis of the overallinvestigations. The results show that: (1) the waterfront resources are abundant in the middle andlower reaches of the Yangtze River, but lack of perfectly combined high grade waterfront; (2) thereexists an obvious regional difference in the natural quality of the waterfront along the Yangtze; (3)the fore-bank water depth and waterfront stability are the main natural factors related to thewaterfront quality in the middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze River; (4) the waterfronts alongthe Yangtze are mainly used for port, warehouse and industrial purposes; and (5) the waterfronts nearimportant cities are highly used, especially the high-quality waterfronts. In addition, some suggestionsfor the development and utilization of the waterfront resources are presented in this paper.