Varietal identification within carrot species is known as being difficult mainly because all modern varieties look very similar. This is partly due to a narrow genetic basis for breeding programmes (only few male sterile sources are used for hybrid creation). Within old varieties, morphological identification is also hazardous because genotypes generally look heterogeneous. Authors investigating all sorts of morphological or isoenzymatic markers generally conclude that intravarietal variability is higher than intervarietal variability, making identification uncertain. In the present study, as a first step, genotypes were analysed with different molecular markers such as ISSR, microsatellites and RAPD. Most of the genotypes were well identified in separated molecular clusters confirming their varietal identification, even for closely-related modern lines. Only some of the old varieties with a high degree of morphological variation were spread over two or three molecular clusters. The comparison between ISSR, microsatellites and RAPD results is discussed.