There are significant regional differences in precipitation changes in China under global warming during the past half-century. In this study, based on 763 observation stations daytime and nighttime precipitation data to examine the precipitation amounts, precipitation frequency, precipitation intensity, and contribution of daytime and nighttime precipitation to the total precipitation, then to appreciate the spatial and temporal patterns of daytime and nighttime precipitation in China from 1961 to 2016. Results indicated that: (1) There are significant differences between nine river basins of daytime and nighttime precipitation. And the changes patterns can be summarized into four types: daytime and nighttime co-increasing, daytime and nighttime co-decreasing, daytime increasing and nighttime decreasing, and daytime decreasing and nighttime increasing. (2) The change of the total precipitation is closely related to the day and night precipitation. The decrease in daily precipitation in the Huaihe River Basin is due to daytime precipitation decrease (-0.72 mm/a), while the decrease in precipitation in the middle and upper reaches of the Yangtze River Basin is due to the nighttime precipitation decrease (-0.21 mm/a). (3) Daytime and nighttime heavy rain amount is higher than torrential rain in the arid, semi-arid, and semi-humid regions, but in the humid river basin, the torrential rain amount is higher than heavy rain, especially the Pearl River Basin and Southeast River Basins. (4) The contribution of daytime heavy rain, nighttime heavy rain and torrential rain to annual total precipitation exceeds 10%, while the contribution of daytime torrential rain to annual total precipitation is roughly 10%. At the same time, the contribution of daytime and nighttime torrential rain to the annual precipitation is higher than that of daytime and nighttime heavy rain in the humid river basins, while the arid and semi-arid regions demonstrate the opposite. Therefore, the results are helpful to understanding of the impacts of global warming on regional daily precipitation cycles in China.