Using the data of sunshine duration, temperature, wind speed， and precipitation from 194 basic/reference stations over China from 1951 to 2009, according to the climatic division, the whole domain of China is classified into 11 climatic regions. The authors studied the changes in annual and seasonal trends of the sunshine duration by using linear trend analysis and Morlet wavelet analysis, and analyzed the characteristics between the sunshine duration and the temperature, the wind speed, and the precipitation. It was found that the annual sunshine duration showed a significant decreasing tendency during the recent 59 years with a decreasing rate of 36.9 h·(10 a)-1. The trend variations of the annual sunshine duration in 11 climatic regions were similar with that in the whole nation, only had the difference in degree. The sunshine duration of China changed from intensive to weak in 1981. There is an obvious 7－10-year periodic oscillation for the annual sunshine duration of China before the mid 1990s. The sunshine duration of the four seasons had a bigger decreasing amplitude in the coastal areas than in the inland areas, and in the South than in the North. There was a negative correlation between the annual sunshine duration and the temperature (correlation coefficient is -0.52), but a positive correlation between the annual sunshine duration and the wind speed (correlation coefficient is 0.76), and a negative correlation between the annual sunshine duration and the precipitation (correlation coefficient is -0.27). The first two correlation coefficients and the last correlation coefficient passed 99.9% and 95% confidence levels，respectively.