In order to study the drying and shrinkage characteristic of different size tobacco strips during cylinder dryer, redrying experiments of three kinds of tobacco leaves were performed in a lab-scale rotary dryer. The results showed that that the size of tobacco trips had no significant influence on the drying rate and temperature of dried materials. For the tobacco strips with the size more than screen mesh 25.40 mm and the trips with size between screen mesh 12.70 to 25.40 mm, the percentage of samples with the size of 225~625 mm² significantly increased after cylinder redrying. For the tobacco strips with the size between screen mesh 6.35 to 12.70 mm, the percentage of samples with the size of 36~225 mm² significantly increased. After redrying, the overall size distribution of tobacco strips centralized 225~625 mm² and 36~225 mm². Size of tobacco has a great influence on shrinkage rate, and with the increase of size its obviously increased.