The coupling interaction and coordination between urbanization and ecological environment is a key issue for harmonious development in regional planning strategy. This paper uses the coupling interaction and coordination degree model and Grey Relevance Analysis to explore the evolution of urbanization and ecological environment and its influencing factors in the ecological corridor of Yangtze-Huai River (ECYHR). The results showed that: the urbanization and the ecological environment indices generally increased linearly between 2012 and 2016 with a relatively large amplitude. The urbanization indices between different cities had similar trend, but with different ecological environment indices. The five cities in the ECYHR can be divided into two types, one is characterize as fluctuation coupling relationship, which consists of Huaian, Suqian and Xuzhou; the other is featured to be stable coupling relationship, which consists of Yangzhou and Taizhou. The coupling degree between urbanization and ecological environment is in high coupling stage in studied five years except for 2013. The year of 2012 and 2013 are in the low-to-middle coupling coordination stage, and it changed into high coupling coordination stage ever from 2014 to 2016. The indices relevant to spatial, social and the demographic urbanization has larger weight in the factors of the urban system, and the indices relevant to the water and the atmospheric environments has larger weight in consideration of the factors in the aspect of the ecological environment system.