The global carbon neutrality target and policy context of China’s high-quality development cause pressure to and are the driving forces of the transformation and development of resource-based cities. The current paper constructs an indicator system based on the ecological niche theory to measure and spatiotemporally analyze the ecological niche for the high-quality development in 115 resource-based cities in China. The results show that, firstly, the high-quality-development niches in resource-based cities are clustered on a medium level. Secondly, the differences in the sub-dimensional niche breadths are greater overall, with minor differences in the niche of resource and energy and considerable differences in the niche of innovation potential. Thirdly, we characterize the overall development imbalance following a more pronounced temporal evolution from the low to high niche over the decade. Based on the results, recommendations are made for resource-based cities to pinpoint and classify their strategies. The exploration of the comparative status, evolutionary dynamics and development paths for high-quality development in Chinese resource-based cities in this paper provides a systematic reference for building a new pattern of synergistic and sustainable development under the new normal of China’s economy.