In order to provide the scientific support for paddy rice production planning and countermeasures to cope with climate change in China, based on climate indices at national level and annual scale influencing the distribution of paddy rice planting zone, together with the geographical distribution of paddy rice planting zone in China and the maximum entropy (MaxEnt) model and the ArcGIS spatial analysis technique, the potential distribution of paddy rice in China and its climate characteristics were studied in this paper. The candidate climate factors affecting the potential distribution of paddy rice in China are obtained from the literatures, and they include the accumulated temperature of not less than 0 ℃ (∑T₀), the accumulated temperature of not less than 10 ℃ (∑T₁₀), days of not less than 10 ℃ stably (N₁₀), days of not less than 18 ℃ stably (N₁₈), mean temperature of the coldest month (T_C), mean temperature of the warmest month (T_W), annual range of temperature (ART), annual precipitation (P) and Moisture index (MI). The results show that the MaxEnt model is able to be applied to the study on potential distribution of paddy rice planting zone in China, the dominant climate factors affecting paddy rice potential distribution include annual precipitation (P), moisture index (MI), days of not less than 18 ℃ stably (N₁₈), and the accumulated temperature of not less than 10 ℃ (∑T₁₀), which contribute about 97.6% of the selected climate factors. The potential distribution of paddy rice in China and its acclimation classification are given according to the existence probability from MaxEnt model, together with the dominant climate factors and the possibility assessment method of future climate change from the international panel of climate change (IPCC). The climatic suitability of paddy rice in China can be classified into four classes, namely unsuitable zone (P＜0.05), low suitability zone (0.05≤P＜0.33), suitability zone (0.33≤P＜0.66) and maximum suitability zone (P≥0.66). The maximum suitability zone includes the northern part of Jiangxi Province and some parts of Hainan Province; the suitability zone includes the northeastern plain, the hill region of the eastern Liaoning Province, Shandong Province, Henan Province, southern Shanxi Province, Jiangsu Province, Anhui Province, Hubei Province, Chongqing Province, eastern Sichuan Province, Zhejiang Province, Jiangxi Province, Hunan Province, Guizhou Province, Yunnan Province, Fujian Province, Guangdong Province, Guangxi Province, Hainan Province and Taiwan; the low suitability zone mainly includes Xiaoxinganling region of Heilongjiang Province, Changbai mountains in the eastern part of Jilin Province, the Bohai sea surrounding area, the most part of Shandong and Henan Provinces, the middle part of Shanxi Province, and the southeast part of the west Tibetan Plateau; the unsuitable zone distributes in those regions including the most parts of Xinjiang Province, Qinghai Province, Inner Mongolia, Ningxia Province, Gansu Province, Xizang Province, Hebei Province and Shanxi Province, together with some parts of northeast China and the west part of Sichuan Province. Furthermore, the climate characteristics of paddy rice potential distribution zone are analyzed, respectively. The results can provide reference for paddy rice planting pattern and countermeasures to cope with climate change impact on China.