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The adsorption and subsequent dissociative reaction of methanol (CH3OH) on clean ZnO(101¯0) surface were investigated using the density functional theory methods and the periodic slab models. There are three adsorption modes of methanol were investigated. Among the two initially-stable adsorbed CH3OH structures, the pathways of methanol dissociation via bond scission of the OH, CH and CO bonds to form methoxide, hydroxymethyl and methyl radicals, respectively, were examined. Several possible pathways for CH3OH decomposition on the ZnO(101¯0) surface were proposed. Our calculated results pointed out that the most favorable reaction pathway is CH3OH(a)→CH3O(a)+H(a)→CH2O(a)+2H(a)→CH2O(g)+2H(a). In addition, the nature of the surface–methanol bonding was investigated through scrutiny of electron density difference (EDD) contour plot.