Abstract: Visibility data from 11 cities’ meteorological stations in Shanxi Province were examined. The trends of visibility from 1981 to 2010 were analyzed by using three different statistical methods: cumulative percentiles, Ridit analysis and frequency of very good visibility. The results showed that from north to south of Shanxi Province, the distribution character of visibility was from high to low. The visibility of the 11 cities declined notably over the past 30 years, and the largest range of visibility declining was in summer. The turning period of visibility change took place during 1981-2002, and both the visibility and very good visibility frequency of the 11 cities decreased rapidly at that time. This was consistent with the economic development. During 2006-2009, the visibility had a rising trend. During 1981-2010, we found that visibility had obviously monthly and seasonal variation characteristics. Three peaks appeared in February, June and September, respectively, the maximum appeared in June. Seasonal change was a unimodal distribution.