<p>The frequent occurrence of bedrock landslides on the eastern margin of the Tibetan Plateau highlights the underlying geological and topographic complexity. However, the factors that control the density and size of landslides triggered by specific seismic or other events are not well understood. Using a high-resolution three-dimensional stress model that incorporates topographic and fault effects to infer the subsurface fracture distribution pattern, we compare the topographic stress proxies with size and area density of 1308 earthquake and 219 pre-earthquake bedrock landslides. We find that these landslides exhibit a strong correlation with topographic stress proxies (i.e., failure potential and minimum principal stress). This finding suggests that topographic stress may control the formation of bedrock landslides by modulating material strength through fracturing, independent of the triggering mechanism. Moreover, active faults significantly disturb the topographic stress, intensifying rock damage near faults, and thereby increasing the likelihood of rock slope failures during earthquakes. In the eastern Tibetan Plateau, over 90% of bedrock landslides occurred when failure potential exceeded the range of 0.41 to 0.43, which are crucial parameters for evaluating rock failure mechanisms and effectively predicting potential bedrock landslides. Our findings argue that bedrock landslide occurrences are not solely driven by random triggering events, but are profoundly influenced by topographic stress, faults, and rock mass strength. Furthermore, topographic stress proxies can offer further insights for landslide mitigation and improving landslide hazard assessments.</p>