Abstract: Textbooks are the important carrier of higher education teaching， and nationalexcellent textbooks provide a unique perspective to explore the status of high-quality textbooksin education. Based on the content analysis of 399 awarded textbooks in higher educationof the 1st National Textbooks Construction Prize， this study indicates a relatively balanceddistribution among disciplines， high proportion of undergraduate textbooks， mostly reprintedversions， relatively concentrated regions， and dominant “double first-class” universities.Generally， excellent textbooks share some common characteristics， such as adherence tomorality education， focusing on academic innovation， serving national strategy， extensivesocial influence， team cooperation and joint construction， information technology integration，and professional publishing institution. Higher educational institutions should strengthen the toplevel design of textbooks construction， standardize the work processes of selection， edit andpublication， innovate the motivation and guarantee mechanism， improve the evaluation system，and promote the research in order to produce more high-quality textbooks in new era and lay asolid foundation for realizing the connotative development of higher education and acceleratingthe construction of “double first-class” universities.