Dali flue-cured tobacco plays an important role in formula of several core cigarette brands. Malic acid is one of major nonvolatile organic acids of tobacco leaf, and it is one of common aroma additives for high-grade cigarettes, so researchers highly focus on tobacco malic acid. The objective of the study was to investigate spatial distribution of malic acid content of Dali flue-cured tobacco, and to provide references for layout of tobacco planting and using of tobacco leaf. The main tobacco planting areas in Dali were selected as the experiment sites. 200 flue-cured tobacco samples of C3F grade were collected from 100 sites in 2007 and 2008 via global position system (GPS). Malic acid contents of tobacco samples were determined. The mean value of tobacco malic acid content of samples in each site was regarded as the original data. The original data, data obtained after logarithmic transformation and Box-Cox transformation were tested for normal distribution. Surface trend and spatial distribution of tobacco malic acid content were analyzed by geostatistical analyst. The results showed that the data after logarithmic transformation showed normal distribution. The integrative comparisons of semi-variogram parameters of the ordinary kriging prediction with three trends and four theoretical models indicated that 1-order trend effect and exponential model were preferable. There were moderate spatial correlation and linear surface trend for tobacco malic acid content in Dali. Malic acid content of Dali tobacco ranged from 41.26 mg/g to 123.45 mg/g, the mean was 81.00 mg/g, and the range of background value was from 65.01mg/g to 80.00 mg/g. The growing areas with the highest malic acid content ranged from 100.01 mg/g to 124.45 mg/g were located in Nanjian county, Weishan county, and Midu county. In the southern tobacco growing areas of Dali, malic acid content showed gradient-like distribution with high-to-low trend from south to north.