Genetic diversity and pathotype variability of Xanthomans oryzae pv. oryzicola strains collected from Jiangsu, Yunnan, Jiangxi, Hunan and Anhui Provinces were analyzed by using repPCR fingerprinting techniques. Genomic DNAs from 69 strains were amplified with two specific primers BOX and ERIC. Dendrograms were generated from the data by using UPGMA analysis. The tested strains were classified into 10 and 8 groups at a similarity of 80% based on the amplification results with BOX and ERIC, respectively. The predominant groups were group 3 and Group 5 for the primers BOX and ERIC, involving 27(39.1%) and 24(348%) strains, respectively. The genetic diversities of the population of the tested strains were 0.9784 (with BOX) and 0.9833 (with ERIC), respectively, indicating the high genetic diversity of Xanthomans oryzae pv. oryzicola. According to inoculation results on five differential cultivars including nearisogenic rice lines carrying single resistance gene, IRBB4, IRBB5, IRBB14, IRBB21 and IRBB24, and a highly susceptible cultivar Jingang 30, the 69 strains were classified into 13 pathotypes. The predominant pathotype was C6 (26.1%). No relationships were observed between UPGMA groups (BOX and ERIC) of the 69 strains and pathotypes, but each group was partially associated with the regional origin of strains.