Rain rate cumulative lognormal and Gamma distributions are calculated from hourly rain gauge data collected in 1991 at 333 locations in China. The Gamma distribution better represents the statistical rain rate distribution. So 1-min cumulative distribution to every gauge station is derived from the piecewise regression results of Gamma distribution through half-empirical conversion coefficients. We suggest the following actions: (1) In south China, there should be an approximately 9¿ E¿5 ¿N area of rain climatic zone K centered at about 112 ¿E, 26 ¿N inside International Telecommunication Union(ITU)-R designed zone M. (2) A geostationary communication satellite for China should be placed over eastern China (between 100 ¿E and 125 ¿E) in order to generally reduce the rain attenuation of Earth-satellite links all over China, based on rain rate distributions characteristic of China. Our data treatment procedure and results presented in this paper may be practical and useful in engineering design. ¿ 1998 American Geophysical Union