PURPOSE: To review the epidemiology of serious ocular trauma presenting to Kasr El Aini Hospital, Cairo University. METHODS: This is a retrospective epidemiological study of ocular trauma patients admitted to Kasr El Aini hospital during a one-year period (2008). Cases were analyzed with respect to: (1) demographics, (2) time, place, activity during trauma and cause of trauma, (3) examination finding. RESULTS: five hundred and ten patients (five bilateral injuries) sustaining serious ocular injury requiring hospitalization were included during the study period. 65.5% of ocular trauma occurred in men (P < 0.001 chi-square test) with an average age of 23 years (ranging from 2 months to 65 years). There were 415 (81.3%) open globe injuries and 95 (18.7%) closed globe injuries. In open globe injuries, it is shown that 40% had corneal wound, 6.6% had limbal wound, 24% had scleral wound, 27.8% had corneoscleral wound, 37% had iris prolapse, 20.5% had traumatic hyphema, 29.4% had traumatic cataract, 9.8% had IOFB. CONCLUSION: The majority of ocular trauma in our population was due to violence related injuries occurring mainly in males.