A fast and new heuristic recursive algorithm to find a minimum height for two-dimensional strip rectangular packing problem is presented. This algorithm is mainly based on heuristic strategies and a recursive structure, and its average running time is T (n) = (n3). The computational results on a class of benchmark problems have shown that this algorithm not only finds shorter height than the known meta-heuristic ones, but also runs in shorter time. Especially for large test problems, it performs better. 2005 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.