Exon 1 of eIF4E gene (eukaryotic translation initiation 4E) of 1904 pepper accessions from National Vegetable Germplasm Bank in China was sequenced and researched on the diversity . The results showed: 17 haplotypes were found among the 1904 accessions and 9 new sites in the 14 sense polymorphic loci which mostly concentrated on the eIF4E protein surface ring; the average haplotype diversity(Hd) and average nucleotide diversity(Pi) of 8geographic populations were 0.519 and 0.00210; differentiation index(Fst value) and gene flow(Nm) between populations showed that it performs different degree of differentiation among groups; AMOVA analysis showed that the total variation comes mainly from individuals within populations(97.23%), only 2.77% of the variation occurred between populations. This research is helpful to understand the diversity of the eIF4E gene, providing more resistant resources for pepper PVY resistance breeding.