The Dragon Boat Festival is handed down from the traditional Chinese customs, along with the Spring Festival, the Qingming Festival and the Mid-Autumn Festival are known as the four major Festivals in China. In the long process of historical development, it has changed with the changes of people’s way of life and way of thinking. The sports activities in the south is the dragon boat competition, and the north is playing Jiju and willow shooting. This paper studies the origin, changes and current situation of the three sports activities, and draw the following conclusions. First, dragon boat appeared in the Qin Dynasty when the feudal system was highly centralized. During the Han Dynasty, items related to dragons were mostly used for sacrificial rites and prayers. During the Wei and Jin Dynasties, the significance of the Dragon Boat Festival to commemorate Qu Yuan was generally accepted, the element of exorcism faded, and competitive activities gradually developed. During the Tang and Song Dynasties, dragon boat competition developed greatly and gradually evolved from a competition to an entertainment activity for people’s festivals. Nowadays, dragon-boat races are held in Hubei, Hunan and Jiangsu provinces of China. Second, Jiju originated in the Tang Dynasty, and was used within palace only, the rulers built special court and spread it to neighboring countries such as Japan, Russia And Korea. In the Song Dynasty, the rules of Jiju were clearer, and ordinary people could go to the Jiju court of the wealthy nobleman to watch. Now Jiju has disappeared, but as an excellent national sports culture in northern China, it has been spread in Chinese history for more than 2,000 years. In 2008, it was included in the second level of national intangible cultural heritage list. Third，Willow shooting originated in the Liao Dynasty established by the Xiongnu in the north. It was originally a sacrificial way to pray for rain to God. In the Yuan Dynasty, due to military needs, it became a widely used training method in order to improve the accuracy of soldiers' riding and shooting. At the end of the Qing Dynasty, the introduction of western firearms impacted traditional sports. Today, the sacrificial significance and military elements of the Willow shooting have faded away and returned to simple archery activities. In the development of thousands of years of Chinese history, the south and the north have formed their own distinctive sports cultures. This reflects the difference of sports culture between the north and the south of China. It is helpful to find the essence of Chinese sports to investigate the Dragon Boat Festival sports activities which are similar to those in Korea but with Chinese characteristics.