Objective  To analyse the tendency of the mortality rate of major malignant tumors in the residents of the Xuanwu district in Nanjing during 1982～2001 to aid tumor prevention.Methods  Diseases were classified by using method of ICD?9.Age  and  sex  structure of national population in 1994 was used to calculate the standardized mortality rate.Standardization method and Spearman’s rank correlation were applied to analyse the data on death cause in the residents of the Xuanwu district.Results and Conclusion  Results indicate that there is a significant decreasing tendency in the death rates due to esophageal cancer,cervical cancer in both male and famale,and stomach cancer in male under the age of 60 in residents of the Xuanwu district in past two decades.However,mortality rates due to lung cancer(in both male and famale) and breast cancer in famale under the age of 60 show a significant increasing tendency.