Introduction <p>We aimed to identify variations in basic clinical features, and delineate the demographic distribution of shoulder arthroplasty (SA) in China from 2013 to 2018.</p> Materials and methods <p>We included patients undergoing SA between 2013 and 2018 in the Hospital Quality Monitoring System (HQMS) in China. Descriptive statistics were used to assess the characteristics of patients undergoing SA with regard to sex ratio, age composition, indications, comorbidities, and geographic distribution, and the Mantel-Haenszel chi-square tests were used for trend analysis.</p> Results <p>A total of 3,910 SA patients were identified between 2013 and 2018 in HQMS, 3,096 of which were hemiarthroplasty (HA) (79.2%) while the other 814 cases were total shoulder arthroplasty (TSA) (20.8%). The six years’ overall trend of SA showed a flat “M-shaped” fluctuating trend. Gradual increases in the utilization of SA were observed in patients aged &gt; 80 years. The most common causes for SA were proximal humeral fracture (70.2%) and tumor (21.6%). Hypertension (28.3%) was the most common comorbidity and the prevalence of SA patients with hypertension increased from 25.6% in 2013 to 31.0% in 2018 (<i>P</i> for trend &lt; 0.001). Moreover, the amount of SA varied by geographic region, with the highest amount in the East region, and the lowest in the North-West region. The hospitals located in Beijing and Shanghai accepted a majority of SA patients from other districts, while a higher proportion of SA patients from the North and West regions chose to seek hospitalization outside.</p> Conclusions <p>The amount of SA in China generally presented a fluctuating trend during the observation period, with HA remaining the predominant type, and there was an increase in the proportion of patients of advanced age and with comorbidities. Geographical variations in the number of SA were noted, along with a discernible level of cross-district attendance.</p>