Abstract: In order to choose appropriate planting altitude for flue-cured tobacco, a pot-cultivation experiment for Yunyan 87 was conducted at the altitudes from 200 to 1000 m in the northwest of Hunan Province of China. The neutral volatile aromatic components in the cured tobacco of grade C3F were determined by GC and GC/MS, and the smoking quality of the same was evaluated by panel test. The results showed that:1) the total content of neutral volatile aromatic components and the contents of megastigmatrienone A, megastigmatrienone C, damascenone, damascone, 3-hydroxydamascone, benzaldehyde, phenyl acetaldehyde, phenylethanol and dihydroactinidiolide were positively significantly correlated with altitude (P<0.05), while the contents of 3-oxo-ionone, geranyl acetone and norsolanadione were negatively significantly correlated with altitude (P<0.05), the content of total megastigmatrienone was positively and that of solanone was negatively extremely significantly correlated with altitude (P<0.01); there was no significant correlation between the altitude and the contents of megastigmatrienone B, megastigmatrienone D, and 6-methyl-5-hepten-2-one; 2) with the increase of altitude, the aroma quantity of C3F increased, while the irritation decreased. It was concluded that growing at higher altitude would be favorable for improving the smoking quality of flue-cured tobacco in the northwest of Hunan Province.