Abstract: The paper aims to explore the tendency of potential evapotranspiration of Hanjiang River Basin in Hubei under the global warming, so as to provide the reference for the layout of agricultural production and the effective use of water resources. Based on the daily meteorological data from 1960-2011 provided by 13 meteorological stations of Hanjiang River Basin in Hubei, the Penman-Monteith model recommended by FAO was used for calculation of potential evapotranspiration. The Mann-Kendall nonparametric test was used for analysis of tendency and test of abrupt change. And based on ArcGIS, the kriging interpolation was used to analyze the spatial variation characteristics of potential evapotranspiration. The results showed an overall wavelike decrease of potential evapotranspiration of Hanjiang River Basin in Hubei from 1960 to 2011 with the changing rate of -16.792 mm/10 a and with the mean of 792 mm. In summer, the change presented a significant overall declining with the changing rate of -15.149 mm/10a. In spring, the change had an overall increase with the changing rate of 4.171 mm/10a. No apparent change could be found in autumn and winter. The spatial distribution characteristics for potential evapotranspiration manifested a gradual decrease from southeast to northwest. Higher potential evapotranspiration mainly showed around three cities-Wuhan, Guangshui and Tianmen. And the potential evapotranspiration showed an abrupt change around 1968.