Okra (Abelmoschus esculentus L. Moench) belongs to the Malvaceae family, which is a fairly new vegetable crop currently grown in a large area in China from Hainan to Hebei province. During 2015 to 2017, wilted okra plants were observed from May to September in an okra seed breeding base located in Beijing’s Fangshan District. The affected plants showed typical wilt symptoms, including gradual leaf yellowing, wilting, and dark brown discoloration of the vascular tissue. The affected plants later died as the disease progressed. Field surveys were conducted to investigate the disease in okra in north China from early June to late July 2018. The disease was found sporadically but had spread to every okra-growing planting area in north China. To identify the pathogen associated with this disease, basal stems of diseased plants were washed under tap water, and then the discolored vascular tissue was cut into fragments of 0.5 cm in diameter, which were surface disinfested with 3% sodium hypochlorite for 10 min, rinsed thoroughly with sterile distilled water, dried on aseptic filter paper, and then placed onto potato dextrose agar medium. After incubating the plates in the dark for 5 days at 26°C, typical Verticillium dahliae colonies were observed, characterized by development of white mycelium that eventually turned to black owing to formation of microsclerotia. Six isolates were initially identified on the basis of verticillate conidiophore morphology and production of microsclerotia. Furthermore, the internal transcribed spacer region of rDNA of these isolates were amplified using ITS1/ITS4 primers, described by White et al. (1990), and the amplicons were the same in sequence (GenBank accession no. MG910491). BLAST analysis of the 541-bp amplicon showed 100% identity with the reported V. dahliae strains (GenBank accession nos. GU461618.1 and FJ475122). Pathogenicity tests of the six isolates were performed on 20-day-old seedlings of okra K1, K6, K11, and K20 accessions (30 seedlings) using a stem-injection inoculation method with a spore suspension of 1.0 × 10⁶ conidia/ml (Bolek et al. 2005). The inoculated seedlings were kept in a greenhouse at 25°C. Seedlings treated with sterile distilled water served as a control. At 10 days postinoculation, all inoculated plants exhibited wilt symptoms with leaf scorching, wilting, and abscission. No symptoms were observed on control plants. The pathogen was reisolated from all inoculated plants, thus fulfilling Koch’s postulates. To our knowledge, this is the first report of Verticillium wilt on okra in China. Considering the threat of okra Verticillium wilt, a project should be conducted for screening and breeding resistant varieties to manage the disease.