Objective To analyze the prevalence rate of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease in people over 40 years old in China plateau (altitude≥1 000 m) in recent years. Methods PubMed, Embase, Cochrane Library, China National Knowledge Infrastructure, WanFang Data, VIP databases and Chinese Medical Database were searched, and the articles published between January 1, 2010 and December 5, 2022 were collected. Two reviewers independently reviewed the literature, extracted data, and assessed the risk of bias of included articles. Meta-analysis was performed with Stata 17.1. Results A total of 13 articles were included, with a total sample size of 37 230 people, including 3 697 chronic obstructive pulmonary disease patients. The prevalence rate of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease in people over 40 years old in China plateau was 9.0% [95% confidence interval (0.07, 0.11), P<0.001]. The results of subgroup analysis showed that males (12.4%), smokers (13.4%), 61-70 years old (15.1%), primary school and below (10.3%), low body weight (12.2%) and Yunnan (11.5%) had the highest prevalence rates within the subgroup (P<0.05). Conclusions The prevalence of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease in China plateau is still high. Gender, age, smoking, education level, body mass index and region are still important influencing factors of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease.