The purpose of this study is to evaluate which clinicopathologic factors are associated with central lymph node metastasis (CLNM) in papillary thyroid carcinoma (PTC). A total of 402 cases of PTC were divided into two groups: CNLM (+) and CLNM (-). In univariate analysis, CLNM showed correlation with sex, tumor size, multifocality, bilaterality, extrathyroid extension, and distance from the capsule. In multivariate analysis, male gender, >1 cm of tumor size, multifocallity and extrathyroid extension were significant risk factors for CLNM. Findings of this study suggest that clinicians should pay attention to the above mentioned significant risk factors when examining lymph node (LN) for deciding LN dissection.