This paper describes a new benchmark for object-relational DBMSs, the Benchmark for Object-Relational Databases (BORD). BORD has been developed to evaluate system performance peculiar to the object-relational data model as well as to the functions of modern database systems. The design philosophy, benchmark database, and test queries of the BORD benchmark are presented. BORD features scaleability, use of a synthesized database only, and a query-oriented evaluation. In total, thirty-six test queries have been designed under fifteen categories, which include exact matches, object identifiers, joins, class references, set-valued attributes, user-defined methods, versus user-defined operators, flattening queries, generic abstract data types (ADTs), and spatial ADTs. In order to show the feasibility of the benchmark, we have implemented BORD with two commercial objectrelational database systems. The experimental results are also reported.