Abstract: According to the latest inventory of glaciers, there are 8900 modern glaciers in the Chinese portion of the Tianshan Mountains with a total area of 9192.43 km² and a total ice volume of 1010.5 km³. These glaciers are mainly distributed over large and high mountains above 5000 m a.s. 1 in the western part of the mountains.East-ward, the number and the size of glaciers decrease.Investigation and the successive fixed-position observations on Glacier No. 1 at the headwater of the Urumqi River both show that the modern glacier are generally in the stage of retreating.Dendrochronological analysis indicate that glaciers in the Tianshan Mountains are in the third dry-and-warm cycle since the Little Ice Age, i.e.the glaciers are now in the state of retreating.And prospectively, the climate will tend to increase the precipitation at about year 2000.