Summary: A thorough understanding of the venues people use for STD treatment is very important to improve the quality of service and AIDS prevention programs. A two-part study was conducted to identify all STD treatment facilities and to estimate the distribution of people seeking STD service in the identified facilities in Chao Yang District, Beijing. The study found that authorized clinical facilities were nearly all located in downtown Chao Yang, and local hospitals covering most areas of Chao Yang were not authorized for STD service. The 'restriction policy' made it inconvenient to seek STD services, especially for people living in suburban and rural areas. Sixty-one percent of people sought STD treatment in facilities not authorized by the health department, including 48.3% who conducted self-treatment in the pharmacies. Only 1.7% of people sought STD services in the STD Center. Thus, concentrating STD control resources in the STD Center would only reach a limited number of persons with an STD. People from other provinces comprised 20% of diagnosed STD cases. STD cases were seriously underreported, and STD intervention programs were very poor in both authorized and unauthorized STD treatment facilities. The study suggests that the government should remove the restriction on which facilities can treat STDs, and make STD services widely available both in the urban and rural areas of Chao Yang. The STD syndromic approach should be implemented in the local clinical settings without sophisticated labs. Counseling should be provided in all STD treatment facilities to help people change their risk behaviors and prevent future STD/HIV infection. STD case reporting should be improved in all clinical settings.