China faces current social problems such as increasing number of disabled population, aging population and theeffects of diversified culture. Universal design is an effective strategy to address these issues. It should be emphasizedespecially in providing public welfare, such as public libraries. In this study, six public libraries across three different city levelsin China were selected for the survey. The purpose of this research is to investigate and evaluate the extent of applyinguniversal design in public libraries in different cities in North China. Additionally, this study examines the level of userevaluations from the perspective of universal design. The findings are: First, the current public libraries in China lack fullconsideration for different users, and the level of applying universal design is not satisfactory. Second, the level of applyinguniversal design in public libraries of China varies depending on different city levels. The higher the level of the cities, thehigher the level of universal design application in public libraries. Third, the Chinese public has a relatively low awareness ofthe universal design concept. Fourth, the universal design level of public libraries of this study is not high. However, therespondents' comprehensive satisfaction evaluation of the libraries is relatively high, which is related to the low level ofexpectation of the respondents. Those in government and public library management as well as scholars in the field ofuniversal design should make great efforts in applying its key concepts.