Objectives To systematically review the prevalence of sleep disorders in Chinese elderly population. Methods CNKI, Wanfang, VIP, PubMed and Web of Science were searched to collect studies on the prevalence of sleep disorders the Chinese elderly from January 2000 to November 2017. Two reviewers independently screened literatures, extracted data and evaluated risk of bias of the included studies, then meta-analysis was performed by Stata 14.0 software. Results A total of 19 cross-sectional studies were included. The results of the meta-analysis showed that, the overall prevalence of sleep disorders was 41.2% (95% CI 36.2% to 46.2%). Male and female prevalence rates were 35.7% and 45.0%, respectively. For individuals aged between 60 to 70, 70 to 80 and above 80, the prevalence rates were 29.9%, 42.0%, 44.2%, respectively. For individuals with primary school education and below, junior/high school education, college degree or above, the prevalence rates were 29.0%, 23.1%, 22.4%, respectively. The prevalence rate of individuals with normal marital status was 31.5%, and those with abnormal marital status (widowed, divorced, single, etc.) was 41.0%. The prevalence rate in individuals with in people with physical illness was 45.7%, and those without physical illness was 32.4%. For the urban population, the prevalence rate was 36.4%, while for the rural population, the prevalence rate was 42%. Conclusions The overall prevalence of sleep disorders in the Chinese elderly is high. The prevalence rate of sleep disorders among gender, age, educational level, marital status, physical illness, and living space is different.