The annual and monthly precipitation were calculated with Mapgis 6.7 based on the 50-year precipitation data at the 25 stations in the Lijiang River Basin and surrounding areas, on which the change of the precipitation during the period of 1960~2010 was analyzed using coefficient of variation method，five-year moving average method and Mann-Kendall test. The results show that (1) The annual precipitation in the Lijiang River had an increasing trend with fluctuation and increased by 23.1 mm/10a from 1960 to 2010, during which the annual precipitation was decreased by14.6 mm/10a from 1970 to 2010. But both of the trends were not significant. (2) The annual precipitation in the Lijiang River Basin has the typical characteristics with rainy season and dry season. The precipitation in rainy season account for 76.26% of the total. (3) The precipitation in January and June show an increasing trend, while the trend in April show a sign of decreasing. (4) There are obvious differences between annual variations and monthly variations and the variation coefficient is less than 0.18 and more than 0.61, respectively.