Etch pits on both {1 1 1}B and {2 1 1}B faces of ZnCdTe have been studied by etching. The Everson method has been confirmed to be a better method to show dislocations on the B face of CdZnTe and shows the same etch pit density (EPD) as that of the Nakagawa method. The further study revealed that there are two kinds of etch pits with different shapes on both {1 1 1 } and {2 1 1} surfaces of CdZnTe samples etched using an Everson solution, They correspond to two different kinds of dislocations. It was also found that the EPD revealed by the El-Ag etchant is one order of magnitude lower than that of the EPDs found using the Everson etchant, which implies that there are at least three kinds of dislocations in CdZnTe materials. The shapes of etch pits and EPD distributions were also studied in this paper. (C) 2002 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.