Objective To investigate the incidence trend of migraine in Chinese from 1990 to 2019 in the global burden of disease database (GBD2019) and its effect on three factors: age, period and cohort. Methods Data were obtained from GBD2019. Joinpoint software was used to analyze the changes in migraine incidence. We analyzed the age-period-cohort (APC) model of migraine in the Chinese population with Stata 17.0 software and estimated the effect of age, period, and cohort on migraine incidence. Results From 1990 to 2019, the standardized incidence of migraine in the general population, and in men and women in China showed a fluctuating upwards trend, and the average annual percentage changes were 0.23%, 0.27% and 0.21%, respectively. The APC model showed that from 1990 to 2019, the risk of migraine in China decreased with the increase of age, showed a downward trend with the increase of the period, and increased with the increase of the birth cohort, indicating that the cohort effect played a dominant role in the risk of migraine in the current period, and the risk of women in the rear of the birth cohort began to be gradually higher than that of men. Conclusion The incidence of migraine in Chinese population is on the rise from 1990 to 2019, and the younger the age, the earlier the period, and the lower the birth cohort, the greater the risk of migraine, suggesting that the prevention and treatment of migraine in women aged 10 to 54 years should be strengthened to further reduce the incidence of migraine in China.