Abstract: The genetic polymorphisms of 17 microsatellites were investigated in nine indigenous duck breeds and one species of wild duck (mallard) in China Average effective number of alleles (Ne) and average rates of homozygote of each breeds were counted. Accordingly, allele frequencies of 17 microsatellite, polyomerphism information content (PIC), mean heterozygosity (H) and genetic distances (Ds) were also calculated. Moreover, dendrograms using UPGMA and the Neighbor-joining method were produced. The nine indigenous duck breeds and one species of wild duck (mallard) population have a high average PIC（0.650 6）and H（0.689 6）. The effective number of alleles is 4.1±1.5. Ds is between 0.163 1 and 0.684 4 among nine indigenous duck breeds. It is deduced that Chinese ducks have not only the same ancestor and about five diverges: 1) Beijing duck, Jingjiang duck; 2) Zhongshan, Jianchang and Gaoyou duck; 3) Jingxi duck, Jinding duck; 4) Liancheng duck; 5) Shaoxing duck