Xinjiang has experienced considerable urban growth in the past sixty years, especially since the implementation of socio-economic reforms in 1978. When Xinjiang was founded as a Uygur Autonomous Region in 1955, there were only three cities with an urban population of 870 thousand, while in 2008 it had 21 cities with a total urban population with 8.45 million. Such an urban growth is attributed to the boost in the number of cities and the urban population. Urban expansion enhanced geographic inequality between the two major regions in Xinjiang. Compared to the Northern part, Southern Xinjiang only has 33.3% of the total cities and 35% of the urban population. Using centrographic analyses, this study aims at explaining the movement of urban center in Xinjiang during the past three decades. The conclusions are the following: 1.The center of city gravity moved to southwest, while the center of town gravity moved to southwest first then returned back to northeast; 2. The distribution of urban area was tending to be balanced from 1982 to 1990, while it is concentrated in the northern area, especially on the economic belt of northern slope of Tianshan Mountain in during 1990-2008. This kind of decentralization in the first stage and concentration in the second period was more obvious for cites than towns; 3.The main factors which effected the movement of urban center in Xinjiang are government new rural economy system (1980), the new urban definition(1984) and superior geographical location as well as better socio-economic conditions are main factors .