The 17th International Liquid Crystal Confernce was held in Strasbourg, France from 19–24 July 1998. It was organized by all colleagues in Strasbourg involved in liquid crystal research with Antoine Skoulios as Conference Chairman, Daniel Guillon as Secretary, Stephane Mery and Paul Masson as Treasurers. This year, the ILCC attracted 897 participants, including 52 accompanying persons, from 38 countries. The largest representation of 130 delegates was from Japan followed by 118 from Germany, 115 from France, 94 from the UK and 77 from the USA. The scientific activities were structured around 10 main topics divided between 3 parallel sessions and 841 posters. The scientific report which follows has been written by Professor G. W. Gray and contains most of the highlights which were indicated to him by different experts on each of the coference topics.