Abstract: Objective To examine distribution characteristics and trend of inpatients with road traffic injury and to provide basic information for reducing road traffic injury.Methods Cluster sampling was used to extract medical records of road traffic injury inpatients from 1994 through 2008 in Lanzhou city and gender,age,occupation distributions of the inpatients were analyzed.Results Totally 4 077 inpatients were recruited with a higher proportion of male inpatients than female(72.75% vs 27.25%,χ²=90.52;P=0.000).The proportion of male inpatients increased yearly with an average rate of 1.96% (r_s=0.718,P=0.003),whereas the proportion of female decreased with an average rate of 4.18% (r_s=-0.718,P=0.003).The proportion of inpatients was 11.23%,15.99%,23.08%,25.66%,13.83%,6.40%,and 3.83% for the patients at age of 0-14,15-24,25-34,35-44,45-54,and≥65 years with significant differences among the groups(χ²=137.61,P=0.000).The proportions of inpatients at age of 35-44 and 45-54 increased with the average annual increments of 3.55% and 4.38% (P<0.05)but the proportion for inpatients at age of 25-34 years decreased(3.63%,r_s=-0.868,P=0.000).There were significant differences in the proportion of the inpatients with different occupations.The proportion of worker and carder inpatients increased with time and that of farmer and other occupation decreased(P=0.000 for all).Conclusion There were more young men among the inpatients and farmers,workers and students are populations at higher risk of road traffic injury in Lanzhou city.