AbstractBased on a summary of cattle breeds originating in China according to data from skull classification , coat color , blood protein polymorphisms , body stature , ecological characters , chromosome group , mtDNA , and archaeological discoveries , Chinese cattle are f rom two major origins. One was Bos tuarus , including turino-mongolian in the regions out side of the Great Wall and draft taurine on the Qinghai-Tibet plateau. The other origin was Zebu cattle , of which there were three. The first was from west Asia , the Af ricander type , second was an indicus origin , influencing Yunnan humped cattle , and the third was South-east Asian in origin , which was supposedly the result of crosses between Bibos banteng and local high-hump cattle. Humpless cattle are mainly the Mongolian breed and their derived breeds , and Tibetan draft cattle. The humped cattle in cent ral regions of China , the Nanyang breed , is obviously influenced by the Af ricander type. When this form breeds with others , the resulting forms have a well-developed chest dewlap and folds. Humped cattle breeds in south-east China have chest dewlaps with poorly developed fold and without an abdominal dewlap. In general , they are two ecological systems , which are divided into three groups. On the ecological side , there are humpless , low humped and high humped cattle. In geographic dist ribution there are the Mongolian group , Huanghe and Huaihai group and Changjiang and Zhujiang group. Nowadays , more than 30 breeds have been int roduced from abroad , and this is accelerating the loss of local cattle genotypes. We make some proposals for conservation of cattle genetic resources.