[Objective] The research aimed to establish a method for simultaneously determining the content of seven index components in cortex moutan.The content of multi-component indicators was used to analyze the intrinsic quality relationship of cortex moutan grades from different producing areas, and the connotation of specification grade of cortex moutan was discussed.[Method] High performance liquid chromatog. (HPLC) was used to determine the content of seven kinds of index components in different grades of cortex moutan samples from different areas.The column was Agilent ZORBAX SB-C18 (5 μm, 250 mm×4.6 mm) with a detection wavelength of 230 nm; the phase was acetonitrile-0.1% phosphoric acid solution (gradient elution) at a flow rate of 1 mL/min, an injection volume of 10 μL, and a column temperature of 30°C.[Result] The linear relationships of gallic acid, oxypaeoniflorin, catechin, paeoniflorin, benzoic acid, benzoyl paeoniflorin and paeonol were good in the range of 0.004-0.055, 0.013-0.189, 0.003-0.045, 0.019-0.291, 0.002-0.030, 0.005-0.076, 0.050-0.752 μg.The RSD of precision, stability and repeatability tests were less than 3%.The recovery rates of the samples were 102.93%, 96.12%, 99.19%, 92.69%, 97.49%, 103.96% and 99.71%, resp.[Conclusion] The established HPLC method is simple and accurate, and can be used to simultaneously determine the content of seven index components in different specifications of cortex moutan.There are different rules for the content of cortex moutan and active ingredients in different grades of different producing areas.There is a weak neg. correlation between the level of cortex moutan and the content of active ingredients in Tongling, Wuhu and Bozhou, i.e., the content decreases with the increase of grade, there is no correlation between the grade and content of the moutan cortex in other producing areas.