In order to explore the development law and regional occurrence probability characteristics of drought events in Guizhou Province, the monthly meteorological data of 1960-2017 measured at 17 meteorological stations in Guizhou Province were used to calculate the standardized precipitation evapotranspiration index (SPEI). Then, the run theory method with three thresholds, wavelet analysis and Copula functions were used to analyze the spatiotemporal evolution of drought events, drought cycle and regional return periods. The results show that droughts in Guizhou Province aggravated during 1960-2017, but the intensities differentiated in different regions, among which the dryness trend with a linear tendency rate of -0.003/10 a in southwest Guizhou was the most obvious. The drought intensity ranked from the highest to the lowest is as follows: east Guizhou, north Guizhou, southwest Guizhou, central Guizhou, northwest Guizhou and south Guizhou, and droughts occurred most frequently in central Guizhou. The main cycles of seasonal droughts were 18, 15, 30 and 8 a in Guizhou Province with a significant difference in the distribution of the south and north, and the range of the areas with long drought cycles increased first and then decreased. The drought return period in north Guizhou is the smallest, indicating that the region has a high occurrence probability of extreme drought events, and is most likely to be afflicted by drought disasters. These results can provide theoretical reference for water resources management and drought prevention in Guizhou Province.