Objective To acquire the composing features of cataract types in China and the knowledge of surgical indications by analyzing the cataract types and preoperative visual acuities of cataract surgical patients nationwide from July 1st，2009 to December 31st， 2013， for promoting the large-scale cataract-extraction work in China. Methods The data comes from the national cataract surgery information reporting system， including 5 013 694 items. Based on the discharge diagnosis， there are five cataract types of operative eyes， including senile cataract， congenital cataract， complicated cataract， traumatic cataract and unclassified cataract. The judgment on surgical indications is made mainly according to the preoperative corrective visual acuity. SAS 9.2 is used for the statistical analysis， with categorical data of Chi-square test and Spearman correlation analysis. Results The surgery information reported increases yearly from 2009 to 2013. Among all the operative eyes， senile cataract was the dominant type （90.83%）； complicated cataract ranked the second （5.40%）； traumatic cataract accounted for 1.12%； the least was congenital cataract （0.80%）. In terms of the age at operation， the age group of 50 years and over was the dominant one （93.88%）； 10 years to 49 years （5.59%） followed； under the age of 10（0.53%） was least. In terms of the gender at operation， the number of female patients exceeded the male， accounting for 57.89% and 42.11% respectively. Most of the operative eyes for cataract were blind （46.88%） or low vision （35.00%）. While 18.66% of the preoperative best corrected visual acuity was 0.3 and below， and 7.17% was 0.5 and below. Conclusion The senile cataract was the dominant type among all the cataract surgery patients in China. Most of the operative eyes were blind or low vision， while a significant number of patients had good preoperative corrective visual acuities. Therefore the surgical indications should be mastered strictly during performing the large-scale cataract surgeries.