Abstract: PURPOSE To investigate the characteristics of cervical lymph node metastasis in oral squamous cell carcinoma (OSCC), and the relationship between clinicopathologic factors of OSCC and cervical lymph node metastasis (CLNM). METHODS Clinicopathologic data of 708 patients with OSCC who underwent neck dissection were retrospectively analyzed. The relationship between clinicopathologic factors of OSCC and CLNM was analyzed with univariate analysis and multivariate analysis using SPPPSS19.0 software package. RESULTS The incidence of CLNM of OSCC was 35.6%(252/708), and the incidence of CLNM at each level was：levelⅠ30.7%（149/485）, level Ⅱ33.8% (164/485), level Ⅲ22.5% (109/485), level Ⅳ8.0% (39/485), and levelⅤ4.9% (24/485), respectively. From univariate analysis of the results, age, differentiation degree, depth of invasion, pathological T stage were significantly correlated with CLNM (P＜0.05); while gender, location were not significantly correlated with CLNM (P＞0.05). From multivariate analysis of the results, only differentiation degree, depth of invasion and pathological T stage were significantly correlated with CLNM (P＜0.05). Depth of invasion was probably the most important influential factor for CLNM of OSCC (OR=2.191).CONCLUSIONS There was positive relationship between CLNM and pathological T stage , depth of invasion; while there was negative relationship between CLNM and differentiation degree. Depth of invasion was probably the first influential factor for CLNM of OSCC.