Abstract: Short-term heavy precipitation can cause floods and other meteorological disasters. Therefore, revealing its climatological distribution and long-term variation is very important for disaster prevention and mitigation and climate change response. Based on the minute precipitation data collected at 2225 self-recording stations from 1965 to 2004 and 2435 automatic weather stations from 2005 to 2019 in China, the characteristics of climatological distribution and variation of minute precipitation in mainland China are analyzed. Results show that the minute precipitation frequency basically increases from north to south, and the precipitation intensity is smaller in Northwest China and larger in the eastern plains. Maximum precipitation at one-minute and five consecutive minutes mostly occurs in the Inner Mongolia and North China. Maximum precipitation at 10 consecutive minutes and longer as well as annual average maximum precipitation that lasts over different periods mostly occur in the coastal areas of South China. Minimum precipitation indices all are found in southern Xinjiang region. From 1965 to 2004 and from 2005 to 2019, the minute rainfall frequency increased in summer, which is the main reason for the increased national average summer precipitation. Minute precipitation intensity had no obvious trend. Percentage anomalies of annual maximum precipitation in several minutes to one day all increased, among which continuous precipitation over the period of about half an hour increased fastest. Overall, minute precipitation did not tend to become extreme, and the increased extreme precipitation can be mainly attributed to the increase in the duration of heavy rain process.