Abstract: China is an important center for the origin of crops in the world. Since 1949, researches of exploration, collection, preservation, characterization and evaluation of crop germplasm resources have been done in China. And now 350 000 accessions of crop germplasm have been collected. This paper describes the characteristics and rules of geographical distribution of main crop germplasm resources, totally including 194634 accessions of germplasm of 73 crops. Among them, food crop germplasm have 161574 accessions, making up 83% of the total number. The maps of geographical distribution of main food crop, fibre plants and oil crops are presented. The crop germplasm resources in China are distributed widely in the whole country. With regard to provinces, crop germplasm resources are more bountiful in Shanxi, Guangxi, Sichuan, Shandong, Yunnan, Shaanxi, Hebei, Henan, Guangdong and the total germplasm resources in these provinces are 112185 accessions, making up 57.6% in the whole country. With regard to agricultural regions, crop germplasm resources at the middle and lower reaches of the Yellow River are the most bountiful which have 52325 accessions, making up 26.9% in the whole country. With regard to the cultivated land, there are the richest germplasm resources per million mu (1 hectare=15 mu) of cultivated land in Xizang (2062 accessions), which is much higher than the national average(135 accessions). But there are obvious differences in the whole country. In general, they follow such rules: the more bountiful the heat resources, the more complicated the terrain and the longer the history of agricultural planting, the richer the crop germplasm resources per million mu cultivated land will be.

Key words: crop, germplasm resources, China, distribution