With the development of global climate change, extreme climate events have drawn attention of worldwide researchers not only due to their direct impact on socio-economy, but also as climate change indicators. Human and natural systems have been affected by extreme climate events to a great extent. The main objective of our study is to detect the possible changes and intensity, tendency and frequency of extreme climate events. Xinjiang is located in the inland China, where the climate is arid to semi-arid. Xinjiang is therefore highly vulnerable to climate variability, and a better understanding of changes in extreme precipitation events plays an increasingly role in the arrangement of agricultural production and the process of agricultural planning. Fourteen extreme precipitation indices have been selected and spatiotemporal patterns of extreme precipitation events have been analyzed based on daily precipitation data from 50 stations covering the period of 1961-2010 using statistical methods. The results indicate that precipitation amount is in an upward trend with increasing precipitation intensity and precipitation frequency. With the increase of precipitation, evident decrease of CDD can be found and increasing trend can be identified by RR1, RR5, RR10, R95P, Rx1day and Rx5day. This result show obvious wetting tendency in Xinjiang. However, different time periods are dominated by different changing properties of precipitation regimes. With smaller variability and higher stability, precipitation amount level during 1960-1970s is lower. The period of 1980-1990s can be taken as the transitional period characterized by abrupt increase of precipitation amount and lower stability, and according to unsteady precipitation variations in recent years, higher precipitation variability can be found after the 1990s. Spatially, increasing and decreasing trends of precipitation variations alternate in eastern Xinjiang with small amplitudes; however, evident increase of precipitation can be found in the northern, southern and the entire Xinjiang region.Alteration of precipitation variations was found mainly in 1986 and 2009. After occurrence of precipitation alteration, strong precipitation processes are subject to higher variability and moderate changing characteristics are found in weak precipitation processes. This study will be of great merits in terms of development of human understanding of regional responses of hydrological cycle to climate changes in Xinjiang.