Nuodeng Village, located in Yunlong County of Bai Autonomous Prefecture of Dali, was once a famous commercial center in western Yunnan Province. The presence of salt well and development of salt economy have greatly changed the development pattern of Nuodeng village, as well as the internal mechanism of settlements. This paper illustrates the ways of how the economic pattern and commercial trade have exerted influence on the overall layout, spatial pattern and single building in the development process of salt well. In addition, given that the village is a typical mountainous settlement, it conducts a comparison between its courtyard building and courtyard buildings of Bai nationality in the dam area in order to find out the evolutionary models of Bai’s settlements. Efforts are also made to explore the internal factors of the formation of the settlements and internal relations of those factors by studying the decoration style and techniques of the public buildings.