A total of 20 orders, 80 families and 222 species of fishes have been recorded from the Changjiang River Estuary area. Among them, 167 species, belonging to 18 orders and 68 families were obtained in this survey during Sept. 1985 to Aug 1986(attached list ). Based on this data,bout 39 fish species are relatively important (IRI=0.1) and they are mostly of the Engraulidae, Sciaenidae and Stromateidae families. The abundant freshwater fish is Leiocassis longirostris only. The 176 fish species can be classified into five ecological categories,based for the most part on salinity tolerance. There were freshwater fishes(10 species), anadromous and catadromous fishes (5 species), brackish fishes(10 species ); a large number of species are marine fishes,which include two groups: the euryhaline nearshore fishes and coastal fishes. 15 species of fishes occurring around the year can be called “resident”; the others are all seasonal migratory species and can be referred to as “periodics”.In periodics the warm-season species consisting warm-temperate element and warm-season element are dominant both in number of species and abundence; the cold-season species consisting of a few cold-temperate element and some warm-temperate element are fewer. This study shows that the Changjiang River Estuary area is an importent nursery ground for juvenile of many fish species.