Surface tension is one of the most important properties of liquid. A new theory is proposed and applied to the phenomena related to the surface tension of pure liquid compounds and strong electrolyte solutions. We first found that the phase transitions of pure liquid compounds from bulk to surface are exothermic and transition heats of 38 liquid compounds are determined quantitatively. This theory also describes successfully the variations of the surface tensions with the concentrations of solutes in strong electrolyte solutions. As a byproduct, minimum thicknesses of the surface layers of these solutions are deduced. (C) 2017 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.