Water footprint (WF) method is a common way to study the water resources pressure in recent years. The total water footprint of China from 1997 to 2002 were calculated by using water footprint method based on the input-output tables in this paper, the method for calculating the water consumption coefficients was improved, and the method for calculating the gray water footprint based on dilution theory was studied in the paper. The external water footprints, the extra water footprints and the corresponding coefficients were also calculated, and the goods (services) structures of the water footprint consumption were analyzed in this study. The results showed that the annual WF of China had a downward trend from 1997 to 2007, with an average annual of 2.83 trillion cubic meters, in which the blue WF was 218.3 billion cubic meters and the gray WF was 2.62 trillion cubic meters (accounting to the third level surface water quality standards). The indirect water footprint accounted for 90% of the total WF, which meant the pressure of water resources mainly comes from the consumption of goods or services. The WF of China depends on self-sufficiency largely, and at the same time China bears a large proportion of the water pressure of other countries, but which has a it shows a downward trend on the whole. In the sight of the structure of goods or services, the diet-related goods or services occupied a higher proportion of WF.