This study was designed to explore baseline data about the prevalence and distribution of human papillomavirus (HPV) genotypes among Chinese women who had cervical intraepithelial lesions and cervical cancer. A total of 511 patients were recruited, and biopsy samples were collected from these patients. Polymerase chain reaction was used to detect HPV-positive samples, and the HPV GenoArray kit was used for genotyping. A total of 23 genotypes were detected, including 13 that were high risk-HPV (HR-HPV), 3 that were potential high risk-HPV (PHR-HPV) and 7 that were low risk-HPV (LR-HPV). The prevalence rates of HPV infection in Han women diagnosed with cervical intraepithelial lesions (CIN) 1, 2, and 3 and squamous cell carcinoma (SCC) were 98.30%, 97.56, 100% and 90%, respectively. The HPV-positive cases in women of other ethnicities diagnosed with CIN1, CIN2, and CIN3 and SCC were 95%, 90.91%, 88.23% and 83.33%, respectively. The most frequent genotypes in both ethnic groups were HPV-16, 52, and 58. LR-HPV was detected in SCC lesions in the non-Han ethnic group. In the Han ethnic group, the LR-HPV genotype was mostly restricted to CIN1 lesions. Furthermore, we found a high prevalence of PHR-HPV81 in SCC lesions among Han women. Ethnic background, smoking, sex at an early age, unprotected sex, use of contraceptives, and the withdrawal method were found to be significantly associated with HPV infection. In conclusion, this study explores epidemiological data regarding the prevalence of HPV and the genotype distribution in patients with SCC and CIN lesions in Yunnan Province, China. (C) 2017 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Limited on behalf of King Saud Bin Abdulaziz University for Health Sciences. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license