Abstract: Anchor plates are buried structures for resisting passive earth pressure,widely used for design and construction of retaining wall structures,sheet pile bulkheads and pipeline bends.In this paper,a unified expression was presented to describe the ultimate pullout capacity of anchor plates.Using records of experimental data from literatures,the parameters in the unified expression for anchor plates in sand or clay were statically analyzed.For the anchor plates in clay,the parameters were also derived in details from the results of finite element limit analysis of buried anchor plates herein.The expression could be directly used to evaluate the ultimate pullout capacity of anchor plates and further applied to the elastic-plastic analysis of other buried structures,such as laterally loaded piles.