The phenotypic traits of needles and branches from four artificial sapling populations of Pinus tabuliformis were investigated in Ziwuling Mountain of Shaanxi Province, China. The saplings were planted in grassland, shrub land, under Betula platyphylla stand and Quercus wutaishanica stand. Remarkably significant differences existed in seven studied phenotypic traits (i.e. needle length, needle width, needle thickness, the length/width ratio of needles, length and diameter of currentyear branches, and the number of needles) both within and among populations. As suggested by the phenotypic differentiation coefficient (V_ST), the majority of phenotypic variation occurred among populations (72.88%) rather than within populations (27.12%), implying that this pattern of phenotypic variation could be largely explained by the environmental factors. There occurred a moderate dispersion degree of phenotypic traits with the mean variation coefficient (CV) of 19.74%. Significant associations were detected between any two of the phenotypic traits, except for the association between needle length and width. According to the cluster analysis, the four artificial sapling populations of P. tabuliformis could be divided into three groups.