Abstract: This paper comprehensively studies the spatio-temporal characteristics of the frequency of extremely heavy precipitation events over South China by using daily precipitation data of 110 stations during 1961—2008 and extremely heavy precipitation thresholds determined for different stations by REOF, trend coefficients, linear trend, M-K test and variance analysis. The results are shown as follows. The frequency distribution of extremely heavy precipitation is high in the middle of South China and low in the Guangdong coast and western Guangxi. There are three spatial distribution types of extremely heavy precipitation in South China. The consistent anomaly distribution is the main type. Reversed distribution between east and west, and between south and north is also an important type. Extremely heavy precipitation events in South China mainly occurred in the summer half year. Their frequency in summer half year accounts for 83.7% of the total frequency. In the 1960s and 1980s, extremely heavy precipitation events were less frequent while having an increasing trend from the late 1980s. Their climatological tendency rates decrease in the central and rise in the other areas of South China, and the mean series also shows an upward but insignificant trend on average at all of the stations. South China’s frequency of extremely heavy precipitation events can be divided into six major areas; each of them shows a different inter-annual trend and representive stations in three of them experience abrupt changes by showing remarkable increases in terms of M-K tests.