In the present work, the infl uence of various retrogression treatments on hardness, electrical conductivity and mechanicalproperties of a high Zn-containing Al–Zn–Mg–Cu alloy is investigated and several retrogression regimes subjected to a samestrength level are proposed. The precipitates are qualitatively investigated by means of transmission electron microscopy(TEM) and high-resolution transmission electron microscopy techniques. Based on the matrix precipitate observations, thedistributions of precipitate size and nearest inter-precipitate distance are extracted from bright-fi eld TEM images projectedalong ⟨110⟩ Al orientation with the aid of an imaging analysis and an arithmetic method. The results show that GP zonesand η′ precipitates are the major precipitates and the precipitate size and its distribution range continuously enlarge with theretrogression regime expands to an extent of high temperature. The nearest inter-precipitate distance ranges obtained arequite the same and the average distance of nearest inter-precipitates show a slight increase. The infl uence of precipitates onmechanical properties is discussed through the interaction relationship between precipitates and dislocations.