Factor analysis and cluster analysis were applied to a set of 17 climacteric symptoms data obtained from 194 premenopausal and postmenopausal women. Six distinct factors were extracted and the women were divided into 7 groups by hierarchical cluster analysis in terms of their factor scores. Only one representative factor was identified in 3 groups out of the 7. These 3 groups including 87 women were tentatively designated as vasomotor symptom, neurotic, and sensory disturbance groups. These results confirmed statistically that at least 3 simple etiological factors exist among climacteric symptoms.climacteric symptoms ; factor analysis ; cluster analysisAt the First International Congress on the Menopause held at La Grande Motte, France in 1976, etiology of climacteric symptoms was defined as follows : 1) hypothalamic-autonomic imbalance, 2) true estrogen deficiency, 3) psychological factors, and 4) socio-cultural factors (titian and Serr 1976). Climacteric symptoms are, thus, so various as to require different therapies, based on the factors involved in their etiologies. However, only fragmental approaches such as those from the viewpoint of endocrinologic (Chakravarti et al. 1979), psycho somatic (Polit and Larocco 1980), socio-cultural, and other aspects have been undertaken in order to elucidate the etiology of the symptoms. Such complexity may be a reason why the etiology of climacteric symptoms, as a whole, still remains obscure. Therefore, we have carried out a series of studies with the aim of developing a comprehensive approach to the etiology of such symptoms ; factor analysis and cluster analysis were applied to a set of symptoms data and the