This paper describes an experimental study of the flow past a square cylinder of finite length placed on a ground plane. The experiment was carried out in an N.P.L. blowdown-type wind tunnel having a working section of 500 mm×500 mm×2000 mm in size at the Reynolds number 2.5×104. The surface pressure distributions on the square cylinder were measured and the drag coefficient was determined from them. The vortices of two kinds generated in the flow field around a square cylinder have also been observed. As a result, it was found that the flow pattern changes rapidly at height-width ratio H/D=7, changing the shedding vortices from arch type to Karman type.