Objective To investigate the clinicopathological characteristics and survival of female patients with esophageal carcinoma. Methods The clinicopathological characteristics and survival time of 261 female patients with esophageal carcinoma，confirmed by surgical pathology specimens in our hospital from January 2008 to December 2010，were retrospectively analyzed， and were compared to 797 male patients with esophageal carcinoma under the same conditions. Univariate and multivariate methods were used to analyze the prognostic factors of female patients. Results The median onset age of female patients with esophageal cancer was 63. Patients with the lesion site in neck or upper thorax accounted for 16.7％ in female. There were 90.8％ of female patients with tumor size less than 5cm. The depth invasion of pT1-pT2 accounted for 49.8％ in female. The pathological TNM stage of Ⅰ or Ⅱ in female accounted for 74.7％. The lymphatic metastasis rate and vessel invasion rate in female patients accounted for 30.6％ and 9.2％, respectively. Compared with male patient，female patients with esophageal cancer had older average onset age，higher lesion site，shorter tumor size，more superficial depth invasion，earlier pathological TNM stage，less lymphatic metastasis rate and vessel invasion rate. No significant sexrelated differences were found in gross morphology，pathological type，neural invasion rate, tumor size and differentiation（P＞0.05）. The 1， 2and 3year survival rates were 89.3％， 74.0％ and 66.7％ in female compared with 86.5％，65.8％ and 51.3％ in male（P=0.015）. Length of tumor，tumor invasion depth，lymphatic metastasis rate and pathological TNM stage were independent prognostic factors in female. Conclusion Female patients with esophageal cancer were different from male patients in the onset age，lesion site，lesion length，depth of invasion，lymph node metastasis，TNM stage and vessel invasion. The prognosis of the female patients with esophageal carcinoma is better than male patients，which is influenced by the short lesion length，shallow invasion depth，low lymphatic metastasis rate and early pathological TNM stage.