Objective To investigate the academic journals indexed by 6 international index systems so as to provide scientific evidence for the development of academic journals. Methods The principle and approach of evidence-based medicine were adopted. Information about Chinese academic journals indexed by 6 index systems was obtained by WEB searching and database retrieval. Details of academic journals in the charge of the Ministry of Education of China( MOE) were sought and assessed by six well-trained reviewers using a blind method. Results Seventy-six academic journals were indexed by SCI which was about 1.52% of total journals published in China and six of them were in the charge of MOE (about 1.46% of the total). Citation impact of academic papers indexed by ISI ranged from 0.9 to 2.2, and average impact ranged from 0.2 to 0.5. Approximately 4.8%, 1.6%, 1.28% and 11.32% academic journals were indexed by EI, IM, EM, AJ respectively. Conclusions The number of Chinese academic journals indexed by key international index systems was small, and the quality of journals should be greatly improved in future.