The governor is elected by the Yunnan Provincial People's Congress, and responsible to it and its Standing Committee.

The governor generally serves as the deputy secretary of the Yunnan Provincial Committee of the Chinese Communist Party and as a member of the CCP Central Committee.

The governor the second-highest ranking official in the province after the secretary of the CCP Yunnan Committee.

[1] The current governor is Wang Yubo, who took office on 25 November 2020.

Kuomintang (Nationalist) (Birth–Death) 龍雲 Lóng Yún (1884–1962) Yunnan clique 李宗黄 Lǐ Zōnghuáng (1888–1978) 盧漢 Lú Hàn (1896–1974) 李彌 Lǐ Mí (1902–1973)