Based on the data from 32 meteorological stations in extremely arid region in northwestern China from 1960 to 2013, we analyzed the characteristics of temperature and precipitation with the methods of the linear regression, cumulative anomaly and Mann-Kendall test. The results indicated that the climate of 30 out of 32 stations in the study region showed a significant trend of warming by 0.034 ℃/a (P <0.01) in recent 54 years with an average annual temperature of 9.3 ℃. The increases of temperature in winter and spring seasons were higher than those in summer and autumn. Spatially, the highest temperature was found in Tarim Basin, and the lowest in the southeast of the study region. The average annual precipitation (55.35 mm) also showed a significant trend of increasing by 0.46 mm per 10 years (P <0.01), and 29 stations presented such trend, of which 11 passed the significant test. The highest rate of increase was found in summer, and the lowest in spring. The northwest and east part had higher precipitation than the south part of the study region. In general, the climate in the recent 54 years tended to be warmer and wetter.