ObjectiveTo study the effects of visceral adipose tissue area (VTA) and subcutaneous adipose tissue area (STA) on pulmonary ventilation function (PVF), and then to evaluate the impact of abdominal fat distribution on PVF.Methods Patients who underwent both PVF examination and abdominal CT between January 1st and December 31st, 2017 were selected from the electronic medical record system of West China Hospital of Sichuan University. The demographic data and PVF indexes [vital capacity (VC), forced vital capacity (FVC), forced expiratory volume in one second (FEV1), and 1 s rate (FEV1/FVC)] were collected. VTA and STA were obtained by abdominal CT measurement. The correlations between PVF indexes and VTA or STA were compared. Results A total of 224 patients were included. According to the VTA/STA ratio, there were 92 cases (41.07%) in group VTA/STA<1 and 132 cases (58.93%) in group VTA/STA≥1. VTA was not correlated with FVC (rs=−0.078, P=0.244), but negatively correlated with VC (rs=−0.138, P=0.040), FEV1 (rs=−0.141, P=0.034) and FEV1/FVC (rs=−0.137, P=0.041); STA had no correlation with VC, FVC, FEV1 or FEV1/FVC (P>0.05). VTA/STA was negatively correlated with VC (rs=−0.220, P=0.001), FEV1 (rs=−0.273, P<0.001) and FEV1/FVC (rs=−0.380, P<0.001), but it had no correlation with FVC (rs=−0.083, P=0.214). In group VTA/STA<1, VTA/STA was negatively correlated with FEV1 (rs =−0.205, P=0.050) and FEV1/FVC (rs=−0.317, P=0.002), but it had no correlation with VC or FVC (P>0.05). In group VTA/STA≥1, VTA/STA was negatively correlated with VC, FVC, FEV1 and FEV1/FVC (P<0.05). Conclusions VTA and STA are negatively correlated with PVF. The ratio of VTA/STA can be used as an index to evaluate the effect of abdominal fat distribution on lung function.