We analyzed 36 patients who presented with neck abscess in our hospital from January 1999 to December 2003. The most commonly involved space was the parapharyngeal and superficial anterior triangle followed by submandibular, retropharyngeal, posterior triangle and submental spaces respectively. 33% of patients had diabetes mellitus as a predisposing factor. More than half of them had no known aetiological cause for the neck abscess. We encountered one mortality in an elderly patient with diabetes who succumbed to overwhelming septicaemia despite early abscess drainage and intensive medical treatment.