Times New Roman">With a combination of the Kriging interpolation and shape function’s derivative used in finite element analysis, the authors have derived the elastic strain rate field in southern Sichuan-Yunnan region, China, based on the regional GPS velocity observations. Furthermore, the derived strain rate is directly converted into the seismic moment rate according to the Kostrov’s moment rate formula. By means of the Ward’s recurrence interval formula the recurrence intervals of MS≥6.5 earthquakes in southern Sichuan-Yunnan region are obtained numerically. The result shows that the contours of earthquake recurrence intervals generally coincide with the major fault zones.