Abstract: A process for producing a xylylene glycol, which comprises reacting a xylylene dichloride with an alkali metal or alkaline earth metal salt of acetic acid using a tertiary amine as catalyst in the presence of an inert organic solvent to effect esterification, removing the by-product inorganic chloride and the catalyst from the organic solvent layer containing diacetoxymethylbenzene which was formed, adding to the resulting organic solvent layer an aqueous alkali solution to effect saponification, separating the aqueous solution layer containing xylylene glycol which was formed, and extracting said aqueous solution layer with an extraction solvent to recover the xylylene glycol.