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Background: As a leading cause of severe disability and death, stroke places an enormous burden on the health care system in China. There are limited data on the pattern of current medical practice and quality of care delivery for stroke patients at the national level., Aim: The nation-wide prospective registry, China National Stroke Registry, will be considered with regard to its design, progress, geographic coverage, and hospital and patient characteristics., Methods: Between September 2007 and August 2008, the China National Stroke Registry recruited consecutive patients with diagnoses of acute cerebrovascular events from 132 hospitals that cover all 27 provinces and four municipalities (including Hong Kong region) in China. Clinical data were collected prospectively using paper-based registry forms. Patients were followed for clinical and functional outcomes through phone interviews at three, six, 12, 18, and 24 months after disease onset., Results: These patients (n=21,902) were 63.8 years of age on average, and 39% were females. Ischaemic stroke was predominant (66.4%), and the other subtypes were intracerebral haemorrhage (23.4%), subarachnoid haemorrhage (3.4%), and transient ischaemic attack (6.2%)., Conclusions: The China National Stroke Registry is a large-scale nationwide registry in China. Rich data collected from this prospective registry may provide the opportunity to evaluate the quality of care for stroke patients in China., (© 2011 The Authors. International Journal of Stroke © 2011 World Stroke Organization.)