At the end of the Paleozoic or the beginning of the Triassic, the plates in northwestern China coalesced to form the tectonic framework of stable massifs surrounded by orogenic belts, which provided the basement for the origination and development of basins in the Jurassic. During the Early-Middle Jurassic, the whole of NW China was in an extensional tectonic environment, which resulted from the stress relaxation between two northward subductions of the Tethys Ocean plate in the south. The Jurassic basin in NW China experienced the development and superimposition of two types of basins. The middle Yanshanian orogeny at the end of the Xishanyaoan Period of the Middle Jurassic was the transformation time of basin types, during which the extensional rift basins in the early stage changed into the compressed downwarped basins in the late stage. According to the mechanical features, geometric configuration, tectonic location, basement characteristics, and depositional evolution of basins, the Early-Middle Jurassic basins can be classified into four types: paracratonic (rift) basin, intermont and rift basin, piedmont rift basin and shear pull-apart basin. Correspondingly, the Middle-Late Jurassic basins in the compressional setting can also be divided into four types: paracratonic (downwarped) basin, intermontane downwarped basin, piedmont downwarped basin and com-presso-shear basin. The formation mechanism of the Jurassic proto-basins in NW China can be attributed to the combination of two crustal movements in vertical and lateral directions. The basin evolution shows close relationship to orogenic belts. The evolution of basins inside or outside the Tianshan Mountains mainly reflects the vertical movement produced by the isostatic adjustment of the lithosphere, while the movement style of the Altun fracture zone, which was mainly derived from the lateral plate movement, exerted influence on the basins on the sides and at the ends of the zone.