SUMMARYLightning surge analysis is very important from the viewpoint of insulation design of transmission lines and substations. Lightning surge analysis has many parameters, which include lightning surge characteristics of transmission towers, back flashover phenomena at an arcing horn, characteristics of footing resistance, effects of corona wave deformation, characteristics of electromagnetic fields caused by lightning, and other parameters. This paper describes experimental and analytical studies on lightning surge characteristics of a buried bare wire. The measurement of the lightning surge characteristics of the buried bare wire is carried out under various experimental conditions. The experimental parameters controlled in these experiments include earth resistance, length of the buried bare wire, and waveform of the injected current. The measured results are compared with analytical results based on the theoretical study by Sunde. A comparison of the measured results with the analytical results shows good agreement.