This volume collects the papers presented at the 10th International Conference on Database Theory, ICDT 2005, held during January 5–7, 2005, in Edinburgh, UK. ICDT (http://alpha.luc.ac.be/~lucp1080/icdt/) has now a long tra- tion of international conferences, providing a biennial scienti?c forum for the communication of high-quality and innovative research results on theoretical - pects of all forms of database systems and database technology. The conference usually takes place in Europe, and has been held in Rome (1986), Bruges (1988), Paris (1990), Berlin (1992), Prague (1995), Delphi (1997), Jerusalem (1999), London (2001), and Siena (2003) so far. ICDT has merged with the Sym- sium on Mathematical Fundamentals of Database Systems (MFDBS), initiated in Dresden in 1987, and continued in Visegrad in 1989 and Rostock in 1991. ICDT had a two-stage submission process. First, 103 abstracts were subm- ted, which were followed a week later by 84 paper submissions. From these 84 submissions, the ICDT Program Committee selected 24 papers for presentation at the conference. Most of these papers were “extended abstracts” and preli- nary reports on work in progress. It is anticipated that most of these papers will appear in a more polished form in scienti?c journals.