Spatial-temporal distribution, climatic changes and characteristics of abrupt change and periodicity of precipitation in Xinjiang were analyzed with mathematical statistics, linear trend analysis, Mann-Kendall test and wavelet analysis based on the complete precipitation data from 89 meteorological stations in Xinjiang from 1961 to 2013. The results show that spatial-temporal distribution of the precipitation was extremely uneven, with maximum in the Tianshan Mountains and their both sides, and concentrating from late spring to summer, especially in July; annual precipitation and annual precipitation anomaly percentage had significantly increased in Xinjiang, with an increasing rate in related to annual precipitation, unlike other regions in China, where they had significantly decreased or no obviously linear changing trend; they also had significant inter-annual fluctuated and periodically changed; the significance of seasonal precipitation increasing was inferior to the annual precipitation increasing; spatially, seasonal and annual precipitation increasing both took place in most areas, with the increasing scope as in the winter>in the summer> in the spring> in the autumn. There were abrupt changes of annual precipitation in the Tianshan Mountains, northern Xinjiang and southern Xinjiang in 1987, 1984 and 1981-1986, respectively. The annual precipitation in Xinjiang as a whole and northern Xinjiang had five periods of fluctuation, i.e., 3, 6, 8, 11, 18 a. In Tianshan Mountains there were main annual precipitation fluctuation periods of 6 a and 10 a; in southern Xinjiang there were main annual precipitation fluctuation periods of 5 a, 8 a and 18 a. Seasonal precipitation also had different fluctuation periods.