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In recent years, scholarly attention to ethnic landscapes in cities has surged. We need to understand how individuals perceive these settings, as they are significant platforms for diverse immigrant community life and social integration. Previous studies have used questionnaires and interviews to understand residents' perceptual processes, but little is known about the relationship between visual attention and landscape-perception processes. This study used eye-tracking methods to investigate how residents in three Chinese cities perceive urban ethnic landscapes and how the residents' cultural backgrounds influence ethnic landscape perceptions. Multinomial logistic regression models were also used to investigate the connection between visual attention and landscape recognition. The results revealed that the participants in Hong Kong and Macao had significant differences in visual attention than did those in mainland China. The participants had higher cognitive loads when observing the urban ethnic landscape in Macao compared to Hong Kong and Guangzhou. The visual attention, participants' residential locations, and ethnic landscape regions were all found to be significantly associated with the participants' landscape recognition. This finding is consistent with the desire of today's urban planners to derive greater value from visual attention research to guide urban development, providing insights into the shaping of diverse cities. • Cultural background affects visual attention in the early stage of landscape perception. • Cognitive load is not significantly associated with landscape recognition. • Different features of visual attention are significantly associated with landscape recognition. • The Ethnic landscape in the Hong Kong and Macau gives participants a different experience. • How different variables drive landscape perception was explored by interviews. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]