Objective Describe the distribution of diagnoses at the ophthalmic clinic of a tertiary hospital in the first four years since its inception. And also analyse the patterns of diagnoses of different age. Methods Cross-sectional study was administered on all new patients seen by ophthalmologists at Nansha Central Hospital from 2008 to 2011. Results 59.90% (12088 cases) were male and 40.10% (8087 cases) were female. Juveniles, adults and the elders accounts for 20.33%, 72.33%, and 7.44% of all visitors respectively. The most common conditions were conjunctivitis (27.00%), refractive error (9.87%) and corneal foreign bodies (9.07%). There were more diagnoses of refractive error (32.26%, P<0.01) among the juveniles, while the elders had higher percentage of cataract diagnoses (27.81%, P<0.01). Conclusion The number of new patients visiting the ophthalmic clinic had increased six-fold over the four years. The proportion of younger patients was much higher than that of older ones and the male to female ratio was high.compared to the results of literature, the marked characteristic of the disease distribution was the high rate of ocular traumatic diseases. The most common diagnoses varied with age.