INTRODUCTION: We investigated the prognostic effect of lymph nodes metastasis in aortopulmonary (AP) zone in resected non-small cell lung cancer of the left upper lobe (LUL). METHODS: Between 1998 and 2010, 181 patients with LUL carcinoma underwent complete resection and were retrospectively analyzed. The patients were divided into four groups according to N status: N0 (n = 68, 37.6%), N1 (n = 64, 35.3%), N2 (only metastasized to stations 5 and/or 6, n = 36, 19.9%), and N2 (only metastasized to stations 7, n = 13, 7.2%). N1 were divided according to single and multiple (N1 n = 49, N1 n = 15) or peripheral and hilar (N1 n = 39, N1 n = 25). RESULTS: Overall 5-year survival rate was 55.1%. Five-year survivals were 76.1% for N0, 54.3% for N1, and 20.7% for N2. N1 had a better survival than N1 (60.3 vs. 29.4%, p = 0.09). Five-year survival of N1 was 60.1%, whereas it was 36.6% for N1 (p = 0.02). Five-year survival rate was 24.6% for N2. Skip metastasis for lymph nodes in AP zone (n = 13) was a factor of better prognosis as compared to nonskip metastasis (n = 23) (29.9 vs. 19.2%). There was no statistically significant difference between the N2 and N1 (p = 0.772), although N1 had a significantly better survival than N2 (p = 0.02). AP zone metastases alone had a significantly worse survival than N1 (p = 0.008), whereas there was no statistically significant difference between the N1 and N2 (p = 0.248). N2 was not expected to survive 3 years after operation. They had a significantly worse prognosis than N2 (p = 0.02). CONCLUSION: LUL tumors with metastasis in the AP zone lymph nodes, especially skip metastasis, were associated with a more favorable prognosis than other mediastinal lymph nodes. However, the therapy of choice for lung cancer with N2 has not been clarified yet.