Objective To evaluate Chinese nurses' perception of the nursing work environment and to compare the differences among the eight economic regions in mainland China.Thus,policy-makers and nursing managers can optimize and coordinate resources based on the results of this study.Methods Chinese version of Nursing Working Environment Scale was used in the study.A total of 19,000 nurses from 31 provinces and municipalities in mainland China were investigated.Descriptive analysis,cluster analysis and nuclear density estimation were conducted.Results The average score of the nursing work environment was 4.1 points,which means nurses were somewhat satisfied with their work conditions.Specifically,nurses were most dissatisfied with the basic safeguard dimension (3.4 points),followed by sufficient manpower (3.9 points),career development (4.0) and leadership and management(4.0)dimensions.In addition,the eight economic regions could be divided into three categories(P＜0.01)according to the differences of the nursing work environment.The first category included the northeast,northern coastal and middle reaches of the Yellow River economic zone;the second category included eastern coastal economic zone;and the third category included the southern coast,the middle reaches of the Yangtze River,southwest and northwest economic zone.Conclusion The development of the nursing work environment in the vast majority of mainland China is unbalanced and the regional differences are obvious.