Abstract: A field investigation used 900 holes of pika burrows in alpine meadow grassland in Gannan Maqu county to study the burrow features of plateau pika, including hole number, location, orientation, pattern, burrow structure. The dark side, semidark side, sunny side of hole orientation of plateau pika showed extremely significant differences. There was no correlation between diameter and orientation of the holes. Holes with less than a 55° angle were mainly concentrated in the SW, SE and S directions and accounted for 48.6% of the total number of holes. Holes with a greater angle than 55° were mainly focused in NW, NE and N directions and accounted for 52.1% of the holes. The hole temperature in the south and partial south was higher than that in north and partial north with a 13.2℃ difference. The hole temperature in the west and partial west was higher than that in the east and partial east with about a 6.0℃ difference. The tunnel structure features of plateau pika were consequences of adaptive selection to the plateau circumstances. Considering the advantages and disadvantages of the temperatures inside holes, air convection and cold wave resistance, habitat exclusion and risk avoidance are fundamental functions of burrow orientation.