Microwave-hydrothermal (MH) route was used to synthesize BaTiO3 (BT) powders using barium nitrate, titanium tetrabutoxide and potassium hydroxide as starting materials. BT powders were synthesized in the present study by maintaining MH conditions at 200°C, 200 psi and hold time ≈30 min using MARS-5 (CEM, USA) unit. Various physico-chemical techniques such as XRD, SEM were used to characterize the resulting BT powders. The characterization results revealed that cubic BT powders having equi-axed shape with agglomerate size ≈0.2 μm were obtained using large excess concentration of barium reagent compared to titanium (Ba/Ti ≥ 4) in solution. © 2001 Published by Elsevier Science B.V.