There is very little information about basic wood properties for yellow-cypress. This report presents wood relative density trends, stem sizes, heartwood-sapwood distribution, and longitudinal shrinkage characteristics in 13 old-growth, 10 second-growth, and 20 in off-site (out of its natural range) plantation-grown yellow cypress trees. Based on these comparisons and previous work at Forintek, yellow-cypress wood appears to be the most homogenous commercial softwood species in Canada. In terms of wood relative density yellow-cypress had comparatively high-density juvenile core-wood. The old-growth resource average density of 0.42 was met or surpassed in all three age classes. Yellow-cypress resource managers and the users of yellow- cypress wood can be confident that wood quality can be maintained in second-growth stands. Wood density comparisons with other softwoods and Japanese hinoki demonstrated why yellow-cypress wood is an excellent substitute for hinoki in terms of product properties.