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Resilience is a fundamental concept for vegetation health. The increasing drought frequency and severity may pose severe threat to vegetation resilience. However, it is still not clear how vegetation resilience is evolving in response to climate change in pivotal biographical zones. Here, we examined the resilience changes in terms of leaf area index (LAI, an indicator of canopy structure) and gross primary productivity (GPP, an indicator of carbon uptake) in responding to the Standardized Precipitation‐Evapotranspiration Index (SPEI) and vapor pressure deficit (VPD) over China's Loess Plateau and Qinling Mountains. Linking remote sensing variables and tree ring width allows the upscaling of plot‐based vegetation growth information. We further explored potential explanatory factors associated with the heterogeneous spatial distributions of resilience changes. Results revealed that the resilience of GPP weakened more than LAI in response to drought, suggesting that compared to LAI, productivity requires more time to recover to the pre‐drought levels. Regionally, the change of vegetation resilience on the Loess Plateau and in high‐altitude areas was highly susceptible to SPEI and VPD, respectively. The observed spatial heterogeneity in resilience changes was mainly attributed by climate zone, water deficit, and their interactions. Our findings provide direct and empirical evidence that the vegetation in the Loess Plateau and Qinling Mountains is gradually losing resilience. The results indicate that sustained ecosystem water deficit and atmospheric dryness will continue to threaten vegetation survival and terrestrial ecosystem service. Plain Language Summary: Vegetation resilience in pivotal biographical regions is altered by increasingly severe drought pressures. However, to what extent resilience changes and how the regional responses vary to different drought indicators have not yet been well explored. Here we quantify the resilience changes regarding vegetation physiological function and canopy structure after the significant changes in drought conditions over the Loess Plateau and Qinling Mountains of China. Results show that the vegetation physiological function has been damaged more seriously than the canopy structure, suggesting vegetation is gradually losing resilience. In relatively high‐altitude regions, the change of vegetation resilience is more sensitive to high vapor pressure deficit than the Standardized Precipitation‐Evapotranspiration Index, but in opposite direction on the Loess Plateau. Spatial heterogeneity analysis shows that these changes are mainly affected by climate zone, water‐related factors (precipitation, relative humidity, soil water), and their interactive effects. Characterizing of resilience changes as reference conditions for ecosystem management and restoration has significant implications in the context of global warming. Key Points: The resilience of vegetation productivity weakened more than that of canopy structure in response to droughtThe impacts of atmospheric dryness on vegetation resilience changes are much larger than those of Standardized Precipitation‐Evapotranspiration Index (SPEI) in high‐altitude regionsCombined effects of climate zone (CZ) and water deficits explain the spatial heterogeneity of vegetation resilience changes [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]