Based on the hydrochemical data of shallow groundwater in Yinchuan Plain , the total dissolved solids (TDS) , pH and main ions were analyzed using statistical methods, Pipe-trigram, Gibbs model, and correlation analysis to study the formation mechanism of the shallow groundwater. The results showed that: (1) The spatial variability of TDS, Cl-, SO42- , K+, Na+ and Mg2+ was relatively large , whereas the spatial variability of Ca2+ and HCO3- is relatively small. (2) The degree of mineralization of shallow groundwater could be divided into three stages: the first stage consisted primarily of HCO3-SO4 water or HCO3-Cl water stage with TDS<1 g="">