OBJECTIVE： To provide reference for the establishment of China’s external reference pricing system for pharmaceuticals by studying on national （local） reference basket and indirect reference. METHODS： The information for the external reference baskets of 48 countries （regions） were collected from the literatures， t-test and Pearson analysis were performed for the description， comparison and correlation analysis of direct and indirect reference baskets in terms of size， rate of high-income countries （regions）， rate of countries （regions） in the same geography， etc； meanwhile， the rate of repeated reference and quantitative index of indirect reference were calculated. RESULTS： The average size of direct reference baskets was 12， in which high-income countries （regions） formed the lion’s share. Except for European countries， countries （regions） from the same region accounted for 20％ of the reference basket size. The size of most indirect reference baskets were within the range of 20-35. The national income per capita of the indirect reference basket was lower than that of direct reference basket. The increase of the indirect reference basket size was modestly correlated with the proportion of high-income countries （regions） in the direct reference basket. The average rate of repeated reference was 88.5％ and the average indirect reference times was 4.5 times. CONCLUSIONS： Main proportion of reference basket were high-income ones. Indirect reference was very common. Effects of the increase of indirect reference basket size as well as the repeated reference might be a concern of China on framing external reference basket.