Based on the samples collected from the Chukchi Sea during the FCNARE cruise from July to August in 1999 with the ＂Xuelong＂, the research vessel of SOA, China, the relationship between the distribution characterization of phytoplankton and environmental factors was analyzed with Primer 5.2 software. The result showed that the assemblages of phytoplankton in Chukchi Sea can be divided into three ecological groups： Arctic-boreal group, distributed mostly in northeastern ice-edge where the depth is more than 2 000 m and affected directly by Arctic Ocean; Boreal group, distributed in shelf-break ice in the center water where the depth is less 100 m; Eurythermal group, mainly distributed in the south which exchanged with North Pacific water through Bering Strait. The species diversity, cell density and distribution variability of phytoplankton among stations were great different. The range of phytoplankton density among stations was 1.6 × 10^3- 90 680.2 × 10^4 cells/m^3, and the ranges of diversity index and evenness index among stations were 0.07 - 0.87 and 0.33 - 3.82, respectively. Principal components analysis （PCA） showed that temperature and salinity had made important roles in the distribution of phytoplankton in the Chukchi Sea. Furthermore, the different influences of the variant water regimes, and the extremely dynamic physical nature of the drifting pack ice （e.g. packing, breaking up and melting ） introduce short-term variability into the water conditions that no doubt affect the phytoplankton distrubition.
