The Xinjiang-Uygur Autonomous District (abbreviated as Xinjiang) is situated in the northwestern most part of China and is equivalent in latitude to the area extending from the southern part of Japan to southern Sakhalin. The continental, cool and dry climate of the Xinjiang district is in sharp contrast with the oceanic, warm and humid climate of the Far East including Japan. Although presently, rice is not an important staple food crop in Xinjiang, there are historical records of rice cultivation covering 1400 years or longer in the southern part of Xinjiang. In the present study, various morphological, physiological, agronomical, biochemical traits as well as grain quality and components of the Xinjiang rice cultivars, including 16 landraces and 13 improved ones, were investigated to characterize the Xinjiang rice cultivars compared with rice cultivars from other regions like Japan, China etc. Furthermore, genotypes of esterase isozymes were identified to analyze the genetic characteristics of the Xinjiang rice cultivars. The results revealed that the Xinjiang rice cultivars displayed specific features of extreme earliness, including longer panicles, fewer tillers, larger grains and very large flag leaves. And most of the landraces were highly susceptible to pre-harvest sprouting. Most interestingly, all the Xinjiang rice cultivars displayed esterase isozyme genotypes identical with those of the Japanese cultivars.