Rainfall erosivity maps are crucial for identifying key areas of water erosion. Due to the limited historical precipitation data, there are certain biases in rainfall erosivity estimates in China. This study develops a new rainfall erosivity map for mainland China using 1 min precipitation data from 60 129 weather stations, revealing that areas exceeding 4000 MJ mm ha⁻¹ h⁻¹yr⁻¹ of annual rainfall erosivity are mainly concentrated in southern China and on the southern Tibetan Plateau.