There are few systematic studies on finger millet germplasm resources in China. In order to further explore the utilization value of finger millet，breeding high-quality millet varieties，the phenotypic diversity of 69 finger millet germplasms collected from 40 counties and cities in Hunan, Jiangxi, Guangxi and Tibet was evaluated. in the study.The results showed that the 69 local resources were mainly distributed in the low and medium altitude of 400-600 m. The diversity analysis based on 19 phenotypic traits revealed a rich genetic diversity in this collection. The correlation analysis and principal component analysis suggested 7 principal components including weight per plant, number of branches on main spike, leaf color, whole growth period, seed coat color, 1000-grain weight and glutinousness. The cumulative contribution rate was 75.525%. Two main categories were suggested for the 69 accessions. The first group included 44 germplasms with small plant, low biomass and low grain yield, and was further divided into two subgroups: compared with subgroup I-1, subgroup I-2 had even smaller plant, lower biomass and lower grain yield. The second group included 25 germplasms with relatively large plant, high biomass and high grain yield, and was further divided into two subgroups: compared with subgroup II-1, subgroup II-2 had lower biomass and lower grain yield. A core collection containing 12 finger millet accessions were identified, by cluster analysis results and extreme-values of quantitative traits and variation types of qualitative traits, as representative resources of the following four types: forage accessions with large biomass, grain accessions with long spikes, glutinous grain accessions, and dual-purpose grain and forage accessions with high grain yield and high biomass.