•A composite method for assessing city-level progress of achieving SDGs was successfully constructed.•Both the SDG progress, driving forces, and simulation showed striking homogeneity and heterogeneity.•The effectiveness and barriers of RBCs to achieve SDGs are discussed.•Related suggestions for accelerating SDG progress across cities are provided. Sustainable Urban development is an immortal challenge for the world, among which resource-based cities (RBCs) face more complex dilemmas due to their special characteristics. This determines that they are the key areas and difficult areas to achieve sustainable development. This study is oriented to the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and constructs a research framework for sustainable development of resource-based cities based on the deconstruction of the SDGs of RBCs. A comprehensive sustainable development evaluation framework was constructed based on DPSIR-Entory, and ESDA and Geographically Weighted Regression (GWR) models were used to study the sustainability transition effects of RBCs. Based on this, a System Dynamics (SD) model was constructed to predict and simulate the future development of resource-based cities under different scenarios. The results indicated that (1) there is a significant spatial clustering of the sustainable transformation ability of RBCs. (2) different RBCs achieve sustainable development at different rates, and low-growth RBCs show a trend of shifting from the northwest region and the southwest region to the northeast region. (3) DPSIR has different promoting or inhibiting effects on enhancing the sustainable development impact of RBCs regions. (4) to attain sustainable development of RBCs, it is crucial to strike a balance in implementing policies within a multifaceted urban system. This study provides an in-depth analysis of the current situation, problems, opportunities and challenges of the transformation and sustainable development of RBCs nationwide and proposes countermeasures. In order to enhance the study of sustainable development of RBCs, it is of great practical significance for the national RBCs to break the resource curse dilemma and achieve sustainable development.