The Minxian-Zhangxian MS6.6 earthquake occurred on July 22,2013,at Minxian country,Gansu province(34.5°N,104.2°E),which had resulted in 95persons dead and 1366persons injured until July 24,2013.Digital strong ground motion records of high quality have been obtained in this earthquake for the third time in China following the Wenchuan earthquake and the Lushan earthquake.64strong motion stations installed in Gansu,Sichuan and Shanxi province were triggered and acceleration records in the main shock werewere obtained.In this paper,the preliminary characteristics of these records were analyzed including the spatial locations of these stations,the number of records within different epicenter distances and PGA contours.Comparing the observed data with the attenuation relationship(ground motion prediction equations:one is HUO(1989)and another one is Italy08),it has been found that the observed PGAs and spectral accelerations are remarkably lower than the empirically predicted ones.In general,the far-field strong ground motion is much lower;however,long-period ground motion attenuates slower than the near-field ground motion due to the particular traveling path and site effect.The reason of the amplification is that some stations located in the center of the basin have a thick overburden than the station located at the edge of the basin.The analysis of the far-field records obtained in Weihe Basin indicates the predominant period become longer.Housner G W proposed IHas an effective intensity measure to correlate seismic severity with structural damage to buildings.For this reason,records and code values have also been compared in terms of IH.By analyzing the Macro seismic intensity and Housner spectral intensity and consulting the geological characteristics of Minxian,the good correlation between the earthquake damage and seismic intensity has been preliminarily presented.Because of the economic backwardness,the houses in rural areas are mainly of masonry structures,of which the seismic performance is poor.Many houses are severely damaged in the earthquake,especially the houses near the epicenter in Minxian country.Most of them are sited in poor geological region,such as valleys,steep slopes andhills.What＇s more,the slope effect amplifies the effect,so the houses are damaged more seriously.The original structure of loess looses because of the ground motion,and then led to the landslides.So the Minxian-Zhangxian earthquake was not very strong,but the earthquake also caused a lot of geological disasters.The macro intensity of China has the characteristics of integrated indicators.This study has an important role on ground motion characteristics and engineering damage investigation in the western region of China.Strong motion records in Minxian-Zhangxian earthquake can be used in further study of ground motion characteristics by combining with that in the Wenchuan earthquake and Lushan earthquake.