Abstract: Objective To obtain the infection status of avian influenza virus (AIV) based on the surveillance among poultry environmental areas and to provide scientific evidence for the development of infection prevention and control strategies. Methods The surveillance data of AIV in Jiangxi Province, 2012-2015, was downloaded from “The information management system of infectious disease surveillance platform”, and then the data were used to analyze the epidemiologic characteristics of the AIV in the external environment. Results The total positive rate of AIV was 25.81% in the external environment in Jiangxi Province, 2012-2015. And the highest positive rate was in 2014 (37.50%), while the year with a lowest positive rate (17.50%) was 2013. Among all the monitoring points, the positive detection rate of the samples from the Lushan Management bureau was the highest (41.88%). Among all the monitoring fields, the top positive rate was from swab samples of the chopping boards for poultry slaughtering or setting (38.46%); The sample positive detection rate varied in seasons, monitoring points, monitoring fields and sample types. Among different subtypes of AIV, the types of H9, H5+H9, H5 were detected in every year, since 2014, the mixture types of H5+H7 (9.50%), H5+H7+H9 (8.25%) and H7+H9 (2.00%) had been detected. Total 15 cases with AIV infection were reported in 2013-2015, and all had poultry exposure. Conclusions The AIV-contaminated areas and the key process in the external environment increased the AIV infection risk of the exposure population. Enhancement on AIV monitoring in the external environment played an important role for the early warning and risk assessment of AIV infection.