Abstract: Physical properties of tailings is an important factor affecting the safety and stability of tailings dam.At present，many physical parameters of tailings are described，but economy and practicability is poor.With the method of mathematical statistics，the physical properties of tailings correlation between parameters are in-depth studied.According to the correlation，the physical property parameters of tailings are divided into three categories，the first category is the combination of void ratio，water content and compressibility；the second category is the combination of compression modulus，specific gravity of soil particle，dry density and wet density；the third category is the combination of consolidation，permeability，uniformity，constrained diameter and effective diameter.According to the average correlation coeficient of similar indicators，the representative parameters of each category are void ratio，wet density and permeability.The results revealed the essential connection among physical property parameters of tailings，which has the guiding significance for selecting the physical parameters of the stability analysis of tailings dam.

Key words: Tailings, Physical property, Parameter, Cluster analysis, Correlation degree, Classification, The representative parameters