According to the textual information provided by the Yearbook of Meteorological Disasters in China from 2003 to 2019 and other public media report data, tornadoes occurring in China mainland from 2003 to 2019 were collected in this dataset, which includes tornado occurrence time, geographical location in terms of longitude and latitude, geographical locations and damage descriptions of tornadoes from the Yearbook of Meteorological Disasters in China and intensities of tornadoes in terms of EF scale. The temporal extent of tornadoes in the dataset is from the period of 2003 to 2019. The spatial extent of tornadoes in the dataset is China mainland. The database help to get a more detailed insight into tornado climatology and provides a forward step towards the rational assessment of tornado-induced disasters in China mainland.