Droughts is one of the natural disasters which can cause severe damages to the karst regions. Here, the Chinese southwest karst region was selected as the study area. Based on the daily precipitation monitored by 33 weather stations in the study area from 1960 to 2016, the temporal and spatial pattern of droughts were analyzed using the methods of precipitation anomaly in percentage (PA) and Mann-Kendall test. The results showed that PA and precipitation decreased, whereas the drought increased in the study period, and the mean PA in 2011 was the smallest. The drought intensity of each season showed an upward trend, among which the intensity and frequency of winter drought was the highest, followed by autumn drought, spring and summer droughts were weak and infrequent. The frequency of interannual drought was high in the south, northwest and middle east of the study area. Extreme droughts only occurred with low frequency in the west and southeast in autumn and winter. The frequency of severe, moderate and light drought were high in autumn and winter, and low in spring and summer. The drought frequency was high in the west and low in the east in spring, high in the middle in summer, high in the south and low in the north in autumn, and high in the west and low in the east in winter. Furthermore, droughts were significantly correlated with topographic factors, severe and extreme droughts mostly occurred in high and steep areas. These findings indicate that the frequency and intensity of droughts in the study area has increased, which is more significant in autumn and winter. The karst drought is highly related with terrain, and has obvious spatial and temporal patterns.