This study aimed to explore whether the genetic variant of COL11A1 is functionally associated with the development of lumbar disc herniation (LDH) in Chinese population. SNP rs1676486 of COL11A1 was genotyped in 647 patients and 532 healthy controls. The differences of genotype and allele distributions between LDH patients and healthy controls were evaluated using the χ² test. One-way ANOVA test was used to compare the relationship between genotypes and clinical features including tissue expression of COL11A1 and the degree of disc degeneration. Patients were found to have a significantly higher frequency of TT than the controls (10.2% versus 7.3%, P = 0.004). Besides, the frequency of allele T was found to be remarkably higher in the patients than the controls (34.8% versus 28.1%, P < 0.001) with an odds ratio of 1.36 (95% confidential interval=1.14–1.63). Patients with genotype TT were found to have remarkably more severe disc degeneration (P = 0.02). Besides, the expression of COL11A1 in the lumbar disc was significantly lower in the patients with genotype TT than in those with genotype CT or CC (P < 0.001). Moreover, the expression level was inversely correlated with the severity of disc degeneration (P < 0.001). We confirmed that the rs1676486 of COL11A may be functionally associated with LDH in the Chinese population. Extracellular matrix related proteins may play an important role in the pathogenesis of LDH. Our findings shed light on a better understanding of the pathogenesis of LDH, which could be a promising target for a novel treatment modality of LDH.