Thirty six local populations of maize were collected in Cantabria, on the Northern part of Spain. Evaluation was carried out during two years, with a randomised blocks design and three replications. Eighteen plant, ear and kernel traits were considered. Combined analyses of variance indicated highly significant differences among populations in all traits. The high estimates of heritability, generally over 0.7, in connection with the detected variability, offer posibilities for the introduction of these materials in breeding programmes. Constancy estimates would allow the use of a set of the studied traits with taxonomic or clustering purposes.Peer reviewed