The 2011 AFC Asian Cup qualification saw various countries take part to determine 10 spots to the final tournament in Qatar under the new qualification system set by the Asian Football Confederation (AFC). Six other teams also qualified for the finals, even though they did not take part in the qualifiers:

Qualified teams

Notes:

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Seedings

On 6 December 2007 the Asian Football Confederation announced the seeding for the preliminary round of the 2011 tournament:

Preliminary round

The preliminary round reduced the number of non-automatic qualifiers to 20. Following the withdrawals of Korea DPR, Myanmar and Turkmenistan, only two teams were involved. The two lowest ranked AFC teams, Lebanon and Maldives, played home-and-away matches in April 2008. The away goals rule would be applied, and extra time and penalty shootout would be used to decide the winner if necessary. The winner of the preliminary round advanced to the qualifying round, where it was joined by the 19 teams seeded 4th to 22nd. Lebanon won 6–1 on aggregate and advanced to the group stage.

Qualifying round

The 20 teams were divided into five groups of four. Teams played each other home and way in a round-robin format. The top two in each group advanced to the 2011 tournament where they were joined by the other qualifiers — Qatar, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, South Korea, India and North Korea.

Seedings

The following teams were drawn at this round:

Tiebreakers

The teams are ranked according to points (3 points for a win, 1 point for a tie, 0 points for a loss) and tie breakers are in following order:

Group A

Group B

Group C

Following their victory in the 2008 AFC Challenge Cup, India was given a bye to the final tournament and removed from this group prior to the first match. They were not replaced.

Group D

Group E

Goalscorers