The complete sequences of ND2 gene from 39 Orthoptera species were sequenced in this study and those of 41 species down loaded from GenBank were used to construct the robust phylogenetic relationships of these Orthoptera species and to explore their phylogenetic utility and performance. The results indicated that the complete sequence length of ND2 gene was 996-1 029 bp with average length of 1 020 bp, A+T content was 73%. The SH test of phylogenetic trees reconstructed using four methods showed that the maximum likelihood tree from RAxML method was not significantly different from that of maximum parsimony or Bayesian method, but was significantly different from that of maximum likelihood method using the PAUP^*. The Orthoptera showed monophyly, while Acrididae, Arcypteridae, Gomphocerinae and Catantopidae were not monophyletic groups; meanwhile the relationship between Pyrgomorphidae and Chrotogonidae was much closer, which was consistent with the Otte’s classification system, and thus we suggested to merge them as one family. Some disputes still existed on the status of the Pamphagidae. Ensifera was divided into two branches. Gryllotalpidae and Gryllidae were grouped into one clade with high confidence, and the Tettigoniidae was regarded as another independent clade.