Densely assembled TiO2 nanorods with a diameter of 150-200 nm and a length of several micrometers have been synthesized by a heating-sol-gel template process. The obtained nanorods were characterized to be single anatase-phase by X-ray diffraction. Transmission electron microscopy image revealed that the nanorods were the aggregate of many nanocrystallites with similar to10 nm in diameter and indistinct polygonal shape. Selected-area electron diffraction and energy dispersive X-ray spectroscopy results confirmed that the obtained nanorods were anatase-phase with good compositional uniformity and fine crystallinity in the entire length. In addition to the fundamental phonon modes, a weak overtone scattering (B-1g) at 801 cm(-1) was found in Raman scattering study which is usually observed in nanosized materials. A new process named heating-sol-gel template process for fabrication oxide nanorods with large quantity, good compositional uniformity and fine crystallinity based on a template method was proposed and the above characterization results support the new process is a desirable process. (C) 2003 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.