Based on the daily rainfall data of ten rain gauging stations from 1971 to 2010 in the XiangxiRiver watershed of the Three Gorges Reservoir region, we studied the spatio-temporal distribution characteristics of rainfall erosivity estimated with our focus on the annual and inter-annual trends of therainfall erosivity (R-factor) for the watershed through Mann Kendall nonparametric tests and Kriging space interpolation of Arcgis software. The results are shown as follows. 1) From 1971 to 2010, theannual rainfall erosivity of the watershed changed from 2 465.26 to 7 419.29 MJ·mm/ (hm²·h), with an，average annual rainfall erosivity of 4 535.63 MJ·mm/ (hm²·h). 2) There was a great variation of inter-annual R-factor with the maximum three times greater than the minimum. The intra-annual distribution of rainfall,erosive rainfall and rainfall erosivity were highly concentrated with a single peak, mainly during the period from April to October, accounting for 85.4%, 92.4% and 94% of whole year values, respectively. 3) For the whole Xiangxi River watershed, annual precipitation and rainfall erosivity had no significant tendencies of change over 40 years. 4) The results also showed that the spatial distribution of R in the Xiangxi River Watershed decreased rapidly from the west to the east.