Abstract: Soil moisture plays a vital role in the hydrological cycle and climate system. It is very important for agricultural drought monitoring and prediction. This paper selects ESA CCI soil moisture data from 1979 to 2019, and uses the Pearson correlation method to verify the correlation of CCI products with in-situ observation data. This paper uses standardized soil moisture index method to classify agricultural drought levels, uses wavelet analysis, Mann-Kendall and Sen slope trend test to study the historical spatio-temporal evolution of agricultural drought in the Yangtze River Basin. The results showed that the area of agricultural drought in the Yangtze River Basin increased first and then decreased. In season, drought is prone to occur in spring and winter. 28, 12, 22, and 32 years are the main periods of drought. The severe drought center had a downward trend at latitude and eastward trend at longitude. The southern part of Jinsha River Basin, the northern part of Min River, Tuo River and Jialing River Basin, the Han River Basin, the upper Yangtze River, the Wu River Basin, and the western part of Dongting Lake Basin have obvious drying trend. The source of the Yangtze River, the eastern part of Dongting Lake Basin, the Poyang Lake Basin, the middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze River, and the Tai Lake Basin have obvious wetting trend. The rest of the Yangtze River Basin remains stable. From the perspective of long-term soil moisture, this article explores the spatio-temporal evolution of agricultural drought in history, and provides a new monitoring method for accurate agricultural drought monitoring and early warning.