This paper presents the application of Adaptive Evolutionary Algorithm (AEA) to search an optimal setting of overcurrent relay coordination to protect ring distribution systems. The AEA takes the merits of both a genetic algorithm (GA) and an evolution strategy (ES) in an adaptive manner to use the global search capability of GA and the local search capability of ES. The overcurrent relay settings and coordination requirements are formulated into a set of constraint equations and an objective function is developed to manage the overcurrent relay settings by the Time Coordination Method. The domain of overcurrent relays coordination for the ring-fed distribution systems is a non-linear system with a lot of local optimum points and a highly constrained optimization problem. Thus conventional methods fail in searching for the global optimum. AEA is employed to search for the optimum relay settings with maximum satisfaction of coordination constraints. The simulation results show that the proposed method can optimize the overcurrent relay settings, reduce relay mis-coordinated operations, and find better optimal overcurrent relay settings than the present available methods.