Based on tumor histogenesis, intrahepatic bile duct cancers can be classified as intrahepatic cholangiocarcinoma (ICC), cholangiocellular carcinoma (CLC), or combined hepatocellular-cholangiocarcinoma (CHC). ICC is the second most common hepatic malignant tumor type, after hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC). Pathological analysis of more than 33 000 malignant liver tumors surgically resected from patients in our hospital between January 1982 and December 2011 revealed that HCC and ICC types accounted for 85.6% and 7.7%, respectively. In addition, clinicopathological analyses of these tumors and patient cases revealed an annual increase in incidence of ICC that was accompanied by similar positive trends in metastasis and recurrence. CLC cases were rare, but generally characterized as aggressive and originating from bipotential hepatic progenitor cells. For CHC tumors, there was an increasing trend for the pathological detection rates, but the prognosis of CHC cases remained worse than that for either HCC or ICC. The accumulated data of our institute's cases of intrahepatic bile duct cancers over the past 30 years indicate that pathological classification has important clinical implications for treatment and outcome.