Monthly sunshine duration data of 28 meteorological observation stations in Qinghai Province over the 1960 - 2013 were used in this research to analyze the space - time characteristics of sunshine durationover the 54 years in the province by using climate trend analysis,empirical orthogonal function,Morlet wavelet analysis and M - K mutation testing method. Some conclusions were gotten as follows: spatial distribution of sunshine duration in Qinghai province presented gradient increasing trend from southeast to northwest. On one hand,the north region had the most abundant sunshine resources in Qinghai. On the anther hand,the north region was the area with the most significant sunshine duration decrease. In the south,the sunshine was less,and the climate tendency rate of sunlight was positive. According to the first principal component,the most prominent feature of the time variation of Qinghai sunshine duration was a comprehensive reduction in the recent 54a,and the sunshine duration became obviously less especially after 1996. The inter - annual fluctuations were obvious. There were many characteristics of the time scale,and the main oscillation period were 5a,10a and 25a.