Promoting the coordinated development of high economic quality and ecological protection in the Yellow River Basin of Shandong Province is conducive to realizing the goal of "double carbon" in the region. Based on the panel data of the Yellow River Basin urban agglomeration in Shandong Province from 2015 to 2022, a coupling coordination degree model of economic high quality and ecological protection was constructed and an empirical analysis was conducted to explore the coordinated development relationship between the two. The results show that the development level of high economic quality and ecological protection in the Yellow River Basin of Shandong Province is on the rise. The regional coupling coordination level showed a trend of "moderate coordination - high coordination", the distribution of each urban area was uneven, and the coupling coordination type showed a trend of "low imbalance - moderate coordination - high coordination". In the analysis of driving factors, the full-time equivalent of R&D personnel, the number of authorized applications for three kinds of domestic patents, and the application amount of agricultural fertilizer have significant hindrance.