We prepared cadmium sulfide nanostructured powder by hydrothermal reaction method. The microstructure of the material was studied by X-ray diffraction line broadening analysis using Rietveld refinement as well as whole powder pattern modeling technique. Based on our findings, we conclude the material consists of two subcomponents with different morphologies: cylindrical crystallites and spherical crystallites. The average width and average height of cylindrical crystallites are 40.2 nm and 335.4 nm, respectively, whereas the area weighted average size of spherical crystallites is 12(1) nm. The microstructure analysis also showed that the dislocation densities of cylindrical and spherical crystallites for different slip systems are in the order of 10(15) and 10(13) m(-2), respectively. (C) 2012 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.