The "World Cigarette Design Study 2000" consists first in analysing physical, chemical and smoke delivery characteristics of the major commercial brands sold in a large part of the world, and second in computing the results to deduct correlations between cigarette design and smoke deliveries. The principle was to analyse for each selected country a number of brands representing about 70% of domestic consumption - around 650 commercial brands worldwide. We have analysed brands sold in Western and Eastern Europe, North and Latin America, Australia, South Africa and Asia. For China, we concentrated our efforts on around 50 brands representing the low tar segment. The main characteristics determined for each brand were dimensions, standard and encapsulated pressure drops, blend type and density, hardness, filter type and pressure drop, rod and filter ventilation, permeabilities of cigarette paper, tipping and porous plug wrap. The static burn rate (mm/min) was measured and dynamic smoking was performed according to the ISO regime (35 ml puff, 2 sec duration, one puff/min) and a smoking regime proposed by the State of Massachusetts (45 ml puff, 2 sec duration, 2 puffs/min, 50% of filter vents closed). Results will be presented by geographical area and relationships between tar, nicotine and CO in smoke and cigarette design will be briefly discussed.We have also compared results from the present study with a similar study run in 1996. Trends will be discussed.