Abstract. Consider the initial-boundary value problem for coupled degenerate dissipative hyperbolic systems of Kirchho¤ type:with homogeneous Dirichlet boundary condition and r > 0 and g > 0. When either the coe‰cient r or the initial data are appropriately small, we prove the global existence theorem by using several identities and the energy decay. Moreover, under the same assumption for r and the initial data, we derive the decay estimates of the solutions and their second order derivatives.