A new dinuclear hydrated zinc (II) tartrate complex has been successfully synthesized via a solid-state reaction at low temperature under the presence of polyethylene glycol 400 as a structure-directed agent and structurally characterized by single-crystal X-ray diffraction, and further identified by element analyses, FT-IR spectra and TG/DTA measurements. It formulates as [Zn(4)(C(4)H(4)O(6))(4)(H(2)O)(8)]center dot(H(2)O)(12) and crystallizes in monoclinic system, and the space group is P2(1)/c with cell parameters a = 13.681(3), b = 17.059(3), c = 18.483(4) angstrom, beta = 96.62(3)degrees, and Z = 4. The structure of the title complex consists of two crystallographic independent dimeric units of [Zn(2)(C(4)H(4)O(6))(2)(H(2)O)(4)](12) lattice water molecules. In each dimeric unit, two tartrate dianions bridges the two Zn (II) ions by using one hydroxy oxygen and one carboxy oxygen atoms as donor atoms, respectively. Each Zinc atom is six-coordinated by four oxygen atoms from two tartrate dianions and two oxygen atoms from the water molecules.