Abstract: With the promotion of clean and efficient utilization of coal and the demand for high-quality development in the middle section of the Yellow River, the transformation and upgrading of coal industry is imperative in Yulin, and the exploitation of tar-rich coal one of the important directions. By organizing and making use of mass drill data, and in combination with the minefield underground spot sampling and regional geology, tar-yield characteristics and tar-rich coal occurrence features of tar-rich coal in No.5^-2 coal seam in Shenfu Mining Area are analyzed in detail. Based on analytic hierarchy process, this paper takes resource allocation, coal bed occurrence, development technology as well as social and environmental benefits as main indicators, subdivides 10 evaluation parameters, and establishes a tar-rich coal resource potential evaluation system. The results show that the average tar yield is 9.81%, and the tar-rich coal is generally well developed. The occurrence characteristics of tar-rich coal includes high tar yield, stable development, local variability, wide area and great potential. The average comprehensive score of the development potential is 77.34 in the research region, which is a resource-rich favorable area. Two fav-orable resource areas are divided, with an area of about 700 km², the coal seam thickness more than 5 m, the tar yield greater than 9%, and the reserves greater than 2 000 Mt, including Hongliulin minefield, Ningtiaota minefield, Zhangjiamao minefield, Daliuta minefield, Dahaize minefield, Shiyaodian minefield, and Qinglongsi minefield, which presents directions for the future tar-rich coal exploration and development.