The invention discloses a nuclear power station crane and an automatic gripping apparatus thereof. The automatic gripping apparatus comprises a gripping apparatus body, four rotary lifting ring components, a connecting rod mechanism and a drive mechanism, wherein the gripping apparatus body is composed of first and second surfaces; the four rotary lifting ring components are uniformly distributed on a same circumference in the gripping apparatus body; each rotary lifting ring component is composed of a rotary shaft, a balancing beam and an engaging lug; each rotary shaft penetrates into the gripping apparatus body and is composed of an upper shaft end which penetrates out of the first surface and a lower shaft end which penetrates out of the second surface; each balancing beam is fixedly connected to the corresponding lower shaft end; each engaging lug is connected to the corresponding upper shaft end and extends in the radial direction of the corresponding rotary shaft; the connecting rod mechanism is composed of a main rod and a pair of swing rods; a pair of swing rods are connected to the two sides of the main rod; the two ends of each swing rod are connected with the engaging lugs of the two adjacent upper shaft ends respectively; and a drive device drives the main rod to move and drives the rotary shafts to rotate through the swing rods so as to enable the balancing beams to rotate between the axial direction and tangential direction of the circumference. The automatic gripping apparatus improves the gripping efficiency and the safety.