| Summary: | <i>Bactrocera minax</i> (Enderlein) (Diptera: Tephritidae) is an important citrus pest in Asia with a non-uniform distribution. In some locations, it had been reported to occur but was either eradicated or disappeared itself. To understand species dispersal of <i>B. minax</i>, we collected and analyzed 359 individuals from 18 localities in China. One mitochondrial DNA gene fragment (<i>nad4</i>) was used to investigate the genetic diversity and population genetic structure of <i>B. minax</i>. The populations were divided by phylogenetic analyses and statistical parsimony haplotype networks into three branches: a Central China (CC) branch, a Western China (WC) branch, and a Southern China (SC) branch. A total of 93 variable sites (15.6% of the 595 bp alignment) and 91 unique haplotypes were observed in the 359 individuals scored from the <i>nad4</i> gene of the 18 <i>B. minax</i> populations. This indicated that <i>B. minax</i> had a high level of genetic diversity. These populations also showed a discrete distribution in both the scatter plots of genetic versus geographical distance for pairwise population comparisons and the median-joining network of haplotypes, which revealed the strong genetic structure of <i>B. minax</i>.
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