An international conference on mathematics curriculum reform in the new era was held in Chongqing City, China during 16 -20 August 2002 .Speakers from ten countries analyzed recent reforms in mathematics curriculum in their own country.According to these presentations, an overview of mathematics curricula from an international comparative perspective is reported here.The ten countries participated were:United States, France,The Netherlands, Russia, Australia, Brazil, Japan, Korea, Singapore, and Mainland China .The first six countries are from the West, whereas the last four are from the East .Themes discussed in the paper are :① centralized versus decentralized national mathematics curriculum, ②influences of examination culture, ③decreased burden of learning, ④confrontation amongst the stakeholders, ⑤diminishing basic skills differences between East and West, ⑥new initiatives for interflow between East and West, ⑦the use of learning technology , and ⑧fate of synthetic/ deductive geometry in the new century .