In recent years,droughts have been discussed with conflicting conclusion of how droughts are changing under climate change.The Standardized Precipitation Evapotranspiration Index(SPEI)based on Penman-Monteith equation of potential evapotranspiration(PET)was calculated at 553 meteorological stations over China for the period of 1961-2013.The results revealed that the SPEI based on Penman-Monteith equation could well characterize the dry and wet climatic distribution and the drying/wetting trends.Although the most frequencies of moderate to extreme drought years occurred in western part of orthwest China(NW)and the northern Tibetan Plateau with 23-30%,these regions also experienced significant wetting trends during 1961-2013,while significant drying trends occurred in Southwest China(SW)and the central and western NW at the same time.By contrast,there was no obvious change of the SPEI in most eastern China(Northeast,North and Southeast China).North China had the least fluctuation of decadal-average percentage areas in moderate to extreme drought grades.Unprecedented increases of drought areas happened in SW during 2001-2013 after slight changes from 1960s to 1990s in the twentieth century.The characteristics of drought areas in other four sub-regions(NE,NW,SE and the Tibetan Plateau)were almost similar with the change of the country,which suggested that the droughts frequencies in the 1960s,1970s and 2000s were higher than that in the 1980s and 1990s.For the country as a whole,the droughts areas from moderate to extreme droughts have significant declined(P<0.1)at a rate of-0.12%yr-1 over the period of 1961-2013,and a more significant decreasing trend(P<0.01)at a rate of-0.44%yr-1 occurred from 1961 to 1996.The trends of both the average and the longest consecutive drought duration were increased since mid-1990s after an initial decline from 1960s to 1970s over China.The objective of this study is to provide an overview of the characteristics and trends of droughts with the improved SPEI index based on Penman-Monteith equation.The conclusions of this study could help decision makers to adopt appropriate policies for water resource management,mitigation and adaptation to droughts threats under the background of global warming.The regions with intensified trends of droughts in the past 10 years should be paid close attention.