[en] A 3 kW CO₂ laser beam was used to join wrought magnesium alloy AZ31 sheets, and the effects of heat input on the quality of butt welding joints were studied. By macro and microanalysis, it is found that the welding heat input plays an important role in laser welding process for AZ31 wrought sheets. After welding, the grains far from the weld centre present the typical rolled structure. But the microstructure out of the fusion zone gradually changes to complete equiaxed crystals as the distance from the weld centre decreases. Adjacent to the fusion boundary, there is a band region with columnar grains, and its growth direction is obviously perpendicular to the solid/liquid line. The microstructure in fusion centre consists of fine equiaxed grains and the many precipitated particles are brittle phase Mg₁₇Al₁₂ or Mg₁₇(Al,Zn)₁₂. With increasing the heat input, the band width of columnar grains varies, the grains in fusion zone get coarser, and the distribution of precipitates changes from intragranularly scattered particles to intergranularly packed ones. The results of tensile test show that the change trend of ultimate tensile strength (UTS) and elongation of the welded joints is to increase at first and then decrease with the heat input increasing. When the heat input reaches 24 J mm^-1, the maximum value of the UTS is up to 96.8% of the base metal