This volume contains the proceedings of the 16th International Conference on Rewriting Techniques and Applications (RTA2005),whichwasheldonApril19- 21, 2005, at the Nara-Ken New Public Hall in the center of the Nara National Park in Nara, Japan. RTA is the major forum for the presentation of research on all aspects of rewriting.PreviousRTAconferenceswereheldinDijon(1985),Bordeaux(1987), Chapel Hill (1989), Como (1991), Montreal (1993), Kaiserslautern (1995), Rutgers (1996), Sitges (1997), Tsukuba (1998), Trento (1999), Norwich (2000), Utrecht (2001), Copenhagen (2002), Valencia (2003), and Aachen (2004). This year, there were 79 submissions from 20 countries, of which 31 papers were accepted for publication (29 regular papers and 2 system descriptions). The submissions came from France (10 accepted papers of the 23.1 submitted papers), USA (5.6 of 11.7), Japan (4 of 9), Spain (2.7 of 6.5), UK (2.7 of 4.7), The Netherlands (1.7 of 3.8), Germany (1.3 of 2.3), Austria (1 of 1), Poland (1 of 1), Israel (0.5 of 0.8), Denmark (0.5 of 0.5), China (0 of 4), Korea (0 of 4), Taiwan (0 of 1.3), Australia (0 of 1), Brazil (0 of 1), Russia (0 of 1), Switzerland (0 of 1), Sweden (0 of 1), and Italy (0 of 0.3). Each submission was assigned to at least three Program Committee m- bers, who carefully reviewed the papers, with the help of 111 external referees.