There are a number of White Sea herring Clupea pallasi marisalbi stocks, which differ in some features, such as growth rate, spawning time, migrations, external morphology. This White Sea herring diversity was explained by several concepts ranging from the model of a single population to the concept of polyphyletic origin. A new concept of the White Sea herring population structure has now been proposed. According to this concept, the White Sea herring is a group of geographically isolated stocks with a poor gene flow among them. All stocks derive from a Pacific ancestor. Stocks from different locations differ in chromosomal rearrangement frequency and mean values of meristic characters. Among the stocks inhabiting the northern White Sea there is a differentiation in the spawning time.