We investigated the existence, clinical symptoms, and brain pathology of cerebrovascular parkinsonism. In this study, clinicopathological criteria of cerebrovascular parkinsonism was defined as follows: 1) at least 2 or more symptoms from the following 4 symptoms: tremor, rigidity, akinesia or bradykinesia, and short stepped gait or freezing, 2) no depigmentation, no Lewy body at the substantia nigra, no other degenerative disease, and 3) existence of cerebrovascular lesions. Among consecutive 4,000 autopsy series in the elderly, clinicopathologically confirmed cerebrovascular parkinsonism was found in 24 patients with mean age of 80 years. Cerebrovascular parkinsonism was characterized by the short-stepped gait as initial symptoms, absence of the resting tremor, lead-pipe rigidity, the symmetry of findings, and negative response to levodopa. Pseudobulbar palsy was observed in 54%, pyramidal findings in 63% of the cases. Most cases had multiple vascular lesions of the basal ganglia, but the distribution of lesions was not different from that in the cases of progressive subcortical vascular encephalopathy of Binswanger type without parkinsonism. Diffuse pallor and the loss of oligodendrocytes in the frontal white matter observed in the cerebrovascular parkinsonism suggested that the symptoms of parkinsonism resulted from the white matter damages in the frontal lobe.