Objective To investigate nurses practice environment in tertiary hospitals in Shandong Province,which can provide a basis for the improvement and construction of a healthy nurse practice environment. Methods The convenience sampling method was used to investigate 56 776 nurses from 59 tertiary hospitals in Shandong Province by the Nursing Work Index-Revised(NWIR) from March to December 2018. Results The mean score of NWIR was 79.20±19.15. The items of “the hospital has a systematic training program for newly recruited nurses”,“nurses in the work team are qualified for nursing work” received the highest scores. The items of “the system of salary allotment is reasonable in hospital”,“the level of salary of nurses is reasonable in all sectors of the society”,“nurses have opportunities to participate in hospital internal management”,“nurses have opportunities to become members in the hospital management committee” and “nurses have opportunities to participate in hospital management decisions making” got the lowest scores. Multiple linear regression analysis showed that gender,age,education,professional title,years of work,whether being recruited by government agencies had an impact on the nursing practice environment scores(P<0.05). Conclusion Nurses practice environment in tertiary hospitals in Shandong Province is generally optimistic,but it still requires continuous improvement. The nursing managers and experts should focus on the establishment and improvement of the authorization management mechanism,encourage nurses to actively engage in hospital affairs,and give much attention to the career development of male nurses and medium seniority nurses,so as to continuously improve and optimize the nursing practice environment.