Abstract: Esophageal carcinoma is a highly aggressive tumor. Surgical therapy remains the mainstay of treating locally advanced diseases. However, the rates of local recurrence of the disease are high after a three-field lymphadenectomy (cervical, mediastinal, abdominal) alone in patients with carcinoma of thoracic esophagus (CTE). Postoperative radiation therapy after radical operation of the esophageal cancer can reduce the intra-thoracic recurrence rate and improved the overall survival for patients with cancers of locally advanced stage, positive nodal disease and poor disease-related prognosis, such as the diseases with three or more positive lymph nodes, stage-N/IV, and large or deeply invasive tumors. However, the radiation fields are different in the previously prospective randomized trails, and the optimal target volume of the postoperative radiotherapy for treating CTE is still controversial. Studies of the recurrence of thoracic esophageal squamous cell carcinoma after radical surgery would provide instruction for deciding the target volume of postoperative radiotherapy. The pattern of recurrence in surgically treated patients with thoracic esophageal squamous cell carcinoma is mediastinal lymph nodes and supra-clavicular lymph nodes. The factors involved in the relapse include operative approach, site of tumor, depth of tumor infiltration, and nodal metastasis after operation, and the number of the metastasized nodes. The characters of recurrence after esophagectomy will provide an important reference to design the radiotherapeutic target volume. Both local control and survival rate of the CTE patients will obtain benefit from a proper target volume of the postoperative radiation.