Display omitted •The 1996 Lijiang earthquake coseismic deformation was detected by JERS-1 SAR images.•Source parameters were estimated by inverting displacement fields obtained by InSAR.•The earthquake can be explained by slip along two listric normal faults.•Two fault slip sub-events occurred; the second was triggered by the first sub-event. The northwestern Yunnan rift zone in the Yunnan Province of China is a seismically active region located along the western boundary of the Sichuan–Yunnan Block on the eastern margin of the Qinghai–Tibetan Plateau. An earthquake with a magnitude of 6.6 (Mw) occurred in this region on February 3, 1996. The Lijiang earthquake was the largest normal-faulting event to occur along the western boundary of the Sichuan–Yunnan Block in the last 40years. In this study, we used L-band JERS-1 (Japanese Earth Resources Satellite-1) SAR data sets from two descending orbits to detect surface deformation signals surrounding the epicentral region in order to estimate the source parameters through an inversion of the displacement fields. The results indicated that the earthquake can be explained by slip along two segments of the ∼N–S trending listric normal fault, named the Lijiang–Daju fault. Coseismic deformation patterns and slip distributions revealed that the earthquake consisted of two sub-events, which were also suggested by seismological results. Based on an analysis of the static Coulomb stress change, the second sub-event was likely triggered by the first sub-event. The central segment of the Lijiang–Daju fault, which has an eastward-convex geometry, did not rupture during the earthquake. This phenomenon was probably related to a geometrical discontinuity at the fault-bend area of the Lijiang–Daju fault.