Abstract: Energy efficiency analysis on Chinese manufacturing industry has gained much interest in the past two decades. By fully considering the difference between regional and subdivided industries, this paper examines the total factor energy efficiency（TFEE） of nineteen Chinese manufacturing sub-sectors from nine provinces during 2001—2011 by using data envelopment analysis (DEA). The TFEE was calculated by an undesirable slacks-based measure（SBM）model, and the energy efficiency differences between light and heavy industries were discussed. The main findings of this study are as follows：（1）The TFEE of the manufacturing sub-sectors is low, and the difference between the sub-sectors is significant. The average TFEE of light industries is slightly higher than that of heavy industries. But in terms of regions, the TFEE of heavy industries in the eastern region is significantly higher than that of light industries, while the TFEE of light industries in the central and western regions is higher than that of heavy industries.（2）The TFEE of the manufacturing industry in each region is low. The highest TFEE is in the east, followed by the central and western regions. Nevertheless, there are some advantaged manufacturing sub-sectors with a high TFEE in the western region.（3）There is a clear distinction for different regional energy efficiencies in the same industry. The development is unbalanced in different regions for the manufacturing sub-sectors with a high TFEE. The TFEE is low in each region for the manufacturing sub-sectors with a low TFEE. There is a big gap between different industrial energy efficiencies in the same region. There exist less efficient sub-sectors in the regions with a high TFEE, while not all sub-sectors suffer from low efficiency in the regions with a low TFEE.