Ninety-three girls with cleft palate (53 submucous cleft palate (SMCP) and 40 isolated cleft palate (ICP)), mean age 6.2 years (range 5.5-7.5), were compared retrospectively from lateral cephalograms. Forty-three patients with SMCP had had surgical treatment at the mean age of 3.4 years (range 0.9-6.8), 10 of the SMCP patients were unoperated. Twenty-six patients with ICP had clefts of the hard and soft palate, and 14 had clefts of the soft palate only. Palatal closure of ICP had been done at the mean age of 1.5 years (range 1.0-2.1). The skeletal craniofacial morphology was similar in SMCP and ICP. The maxilla and mandible were well related to each other but slightly retrusive in relation to the cranial base. The slight skeletal retrusion was significantly more masked by soft tissue in patients with SMCP. The patients with SMCP showed higher values for soft tissue maxillary and mandibular prominence.