Abstract: Based on the daily precipitation data of 131 meteorological stations in the middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze River Basin between 1961 and 2017. A total of nine indices were selected to represent extreme precipitation characteristics in this area. We studied the temporal and spatial distribution of extreme precipitation in the middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze River Basin and its relationship with the large-scale atmospheric circulation and sunspot by using trend analysis and cross-wavelet transform. This results showed: (1) Between 1961 and 2017, the extreme precipitation indexes increased in the middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze River Basin except for the consecutive dry days (CDD) and consecutive wet days (CWD); (2) Except for CDD and CWD, the extreme precipitation indexes showed semi-circular trends that decreased from the southeast of the basin to three sides, there were significant increases of the most extreme precipitation indexes at Doting Lake Basin, the lower Yangtze River Basin and Taihu Basin during 1961-2017; (3) While the design return period was set up at 50 years, the spatial distribution of all the extreme precipitation indices (except the CDD and CWD) presented the decreasing from the southeast to the northwest, the two anomalous distributions parts may be related to topographical factors; (4) Sunspot was shown as the most significant effect on the extreme precipitation, followed by ENSO, and PDO has the weakest effect. The results of this study can be the foundation for the investigation of extreme climate event driving forces and climate prediction, and provide support for disaster prevention and reduction.