Objective In an attempt to reduce the risk of intraoperative recurrent laryngeal nerve (RLN) damage, human autopsy was conducted to determine the distribution of RLN and its relationship with surroundings. Methods With the naked eye observation, 20 formalin-fixed adult cadavers were examined. The relationships between RLN and inferior thyroid artery and inferior horn of thyroid cartilage were defined. Both the distance between entering point and inferior horn of thyroid cartilage and the distance between inferior horn of thyroid cartilage and middle point of clavicle bone or upper margin of stern were measured. Results The proportion of cases for recurrent laryngeal nerves intercrossed with inferior thyroid artery and for the crossing above the plane of inferior pole was respectively 88% and 96%. Therecurrent laryngeal never in front and rear of the inferi of thyroid artery and its branches were 22% and 50%,respectivdly.Most cases of RLN were behind Berry s suspensory ligament (95%). The distance between entering point of recurrent laryngeal nerve and inferior horn of thyroid cartilage was 8.2±2.5mm. Conclusion The results suggested that the correlation between RLN and its surrounding tissues is very complicated. The inferior horn of thyroid cartilage may be a useful marker for RLN.