We present a reconstruction of July–August mean maximum temperature variability for northern West Sichuan Plateau (NWSP), China based on a chronology of tree-ring widths over the period 1646–2013 AD. A regression model explains 37.1 % of the variance of July–August mean maximum temperature during the calibration period from 1954 to 2012. Seven major cold periods were identified including 1708–1711, 1765–1769, 1818–1821, 1824–1828, 1832–1836,

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... dash;1842 and 1869–1877, and three major warm periods occurred between 1655–1668, 1719–1730 and 1858–1859 in our reconstruction. Comparison with other nearby temperature reconstructions and spatial correlations with gridded land surface temperature dates revealed that our temperature reconstruction has high spatial representativeness. 20th century rapid warming wasn't obvious in the NWSP mean maximum temperature reconstruction, which implied that mean maximum temperature might play an important and different role in global change as unique temperature indicators. Multi-taper method (MTM) spectral analysis revealed significant periodicities of 170-, 49–114-, 25–32-, 5.7-, 4.6–4.7-, 3.0–3.1-, 2.5- and 2.1–2.3-year quasi-cycles at a 95 % confidence level. The mean maxi mum temperature variability in northwest Sichuan may be affected by ENSO, PDO, AMO and solar activity.