Elevation and land use/ land cover (LULC) plays an important role in the diversity of lichens in the Himalayas. The elevation gradients and LULC can be remotely assessed using remote sensing (RS) and geographical information systems (GIS). The current study was done in the Chopta-Tungnath landscape in the Kedarnath wildlife sanctuary, western Himalaya, India. Digital elevation modelling of the study area was done using shuttle radar topography mission data (SRTM-DEM) processed in Esri ArcGIS® ArcMAPTM 10.5, to assess the elevation gradient of the study area and selection of four lichen sampling sites. The LULC maps of the study area were prepared using Landsat 8 and Google Earth Pro 7.3.2.5776 imagery processed using LeicaTM ERDAS IMAGINE® 9.2. An elevation gradient of 2750 m to 3703m was recorded by SRTM-DEM. The LULC analysis resulted in five LULC classes of which the four sampling sites fall in the 3 LULC classes. The principal component analysis (PCA), used to analyse the lichen communities along the RS-GIS recognized LULC classes. The study found lichen communities to be a proxy to the LULC classes in the Himalayas with clear gradients of growth forms and habitat subsets along the increasing elevation gradient.