Abstract: In this study, we compared the physicochemical qualities and the muscle textural characteristic including the water holding capacity, the collagen content, the muscle fiber diameter and other textural characteristics, between the wild, pond-cultured, and factory-cultured Paralichthys olivaceus. Our observations were: (1) The drip loss rate of the muscles on the eye side or blind side followed the order wildpondfactory (P0.01). The water loss of the factory-cultured group was higher than that of the wild and the pond-cultured groups (P0.01). There was no significant difference between the wild group and the pond-cultured group (P0.05). (2) There were no differences in the collagen content or the muscle fiber diameter of the muscles on the eye side or the blind side between the three groups (P0.05). (3) The principal component analysis suggested that adhesiveness and gumminess were the main indicators of the textural characteristics of the P. olivaceus muscles. The factory-cultured P. olivaceus showed higher water-holding capacity, while the pond-cultured P. olivaceus and the wild P. olivaceus were similar regarding the physicochemical qualities and the textural characteristics of the muscles. The results implied that the wild P. olivaceus might not have remarkable advantage in the physicochemical qualities.