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A total of 398 chili pepper germplasms were used as test materials and genetic diversity and correlation analysis were performed on 17 botanical traits. The results of diversity analysis showed that the diversity indexes of the 17 botanical traits ranged from 0.15 to 5.97 with the average value of 4. 12. The data distributions of 11 quantitative traits were more dispersed than qualitative traits. The average value of coefficient of variation was 36.90% and the variation ranges were one to six times larger than the average value. The results of correlation analysis showed that plant height had significantly positive correlations with plant breadth, leaf length, leaf width, petiole length, the first flower node and carpopodium length. The first flower node was significantly negatively correlated with fruit length, fruit width, flesh thickness and weight per fruit and significantly positively correlated with plant height and plant breadth. The flesh thickness was significantly positively correlated with leaf length, leaf width, petiole length, fruit length, fruit width and carpopodium length. The weight per fruit was significantly positively correlated with leaf length, leaf width, petiole length, fruit length, fruit width, carpopodium length and flesh thickness. Materials with low first flower node, moderate plant height and width and large fruit should be selected for the breeding of early-maturing and high-yield chili pepper varieties. The genetic distances between chili pepper traits were calculated based on the genotypic values of the 11 quantitative traits. The genetic distances between different traits ranged from 14.26 to 32.99. The 11 quantitative traits were divided into seven groups when the rescaled distance was ten, which further clarified the relationships between different traits. The research results laid a solid foundation for the new variety breeding of chili pepper. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]