Objective To investigate nursing managers’ cognition for disaster , so as to provide reference for better organization and conduct of education and training on disaster nursing. Methods Investigation was carried out in the nursing managers from 12 secondary hospitals of 12 counties and 2 tertiary hospitals of Baise municipal district by questionnaire which included general information, relevant experience on disaster relief, cognition of disaster nursing. Results 60.5% of nursing managers took part in disaster relief work before, among which natural disasters mainly included droughts and floods; man-made disasters were mainly traffic accidents and food poisoning in group. Only 26.11% of the respondents considered they were fully qualified for rescue work. And 45.86% of these department managers did not carry out disaster nursing training for their department staff, which indicated that their cognition of knowledge on disaster nursing was relatively low (comparison between sums<54%). There was no significant difference between nursing managers of tertiary hospitals and those of secondary hospitals in terms of all items except for their active degree for participating in disaster relief (P < 0.05) Conclusion Nursing managers have higher demand of disaster nursing training, but their ability for disaster relief and for training department personnel are insufficient. Thus, disaster nursing education and training should be carried out under integrated planning in order to meet the needs of disaster nursing in clinical work