Objective To probe into urban residents' mental health knowledge awareness in Jingmen city. Methods By means of self-compiled questionnaires, 563 community residents were surveyed about their mental health knowledge and access to it. Results For mental health- care knowledge, community residents scored a total of (42.52±8.79), among which, (15.34±3.25) points for relevant causes,(12.23±4.89) points for corresponding symptoms, and (14.92±4.26) for health behavior. Such aspects would affect a resident's awareness of mental health knowledge as the resident's education background,marriage and chronic diseases. Radio and television (48.3%), newspapers and magazines (41.4%), hospital expert advice (39.8%), and community medical services (36.1% ) were considered the better access to mental health knowledge. Conclusions Residents had considerably inadequate knowledge of mental health. Therefore, a variety of health- care education activities should be carried out to improve residents'mental health knowledge.