To assess whether stroke patients admitted to stroke units (SU) have a better short-term outcome than those treated in conventional wards (CW). A total of 20 hospitals from 16 provinces in China were initially selected in this study. Finally, 24,090 consecutive admissions in 2013-2015 treated in CW and 21,332 consecutive entries in 2017-2019 treated in SU were included. The primary endpoint of this study was the all-cause death or dependency condition three months after admission. Patients in the SU group were more likely receiving thrombolytic therapy (3.9 vs 2.1%) and intravascular treatment (1.2 and 0.7%). In-hospital death were lower in the SU group than the CW group (SU vs CW: 2.93 vs 4.58% [absolute difference, - 2.28% {95% CI, - 3.32% to - 0.93%}, odd ratio {OR}, 0.72{95% CI, 0.61 to 0.82}]. Death after discharge was also lower in the SU group than the CW (SU vs CW: 5.07 vs 6.72% [absolute difference, - 2.33% {95% CI, - 3.39% to - 0.90%}, odd ratio {OR}, 0.75{95% CI, 0.68 to 0.84}]. In addition, patients who received SU care were less likely to be dead or disabled than those patients who received CW care after adjusting for other variability (SU vs CW: 36.20 vs 44.33% [absolute difference, - 11.33% {95% CI, - 15.32% to - 7.14%}, odd ratio {OR}, 0.78{95% CI, 0.80 to 0.85}]. Among patients with stroke, admission to a designated SU was associated with modestly lower mortality at discharge, reduced probability of death, or being disabled at the end of follow-up.