The invention provides a cotton planting method for increasing yield and improving water utilization efficiency in arid early-maturing cotton areas. The method includes steps of seed selection; pre-sowing moisturizing and ploughing for soil preparation; timely sowing and high-density planting; intertillage weeding, warming and soil moisture preservation; water regulation supplemented by chemical regulation; shallow application of base fertilizers and topdressing; standard disleaving, timely harvesting and the like. By adoption of the method, problems of low water-fertilizer utilization efficiency, unfavorable-delayed senescence of cotton, poor mechanical harvesting quality and the like caused by nonstandard techniques in dripping time and quantity, fertilizing time and quantity, chemical regulation time and quantity and the like are solved.