Five assays for the detection of human papillomavirus (HPV) with different assay principles were evaluated. A total of 230 cervical swab specimens were collected from subjects according to the cytologic results. All specimens were tested by the following assays: hybrid capture 2 (HC2), two real-time PCR assays (Abbott RealTime HR and AdvanSure RealTime), liquid beads microarray (GeneFinder) and peptide nucleic acid-based array (PANArray). The HPV DNA of 99 samples was sequenced to identify genotypes. Concordance rates between the results for the identification of 14 high risk HPV genotypes by any two of the evaluated assays, except for AdvanSure RealTime, ranged from 83.0% to 88.3%, and those for the identification of genotypes 16 and 18, except for HC2, were 93.0% and 96.1%, respectively. The results for the evaluation of high risk HPV genotypes by HC2 agreed with those of the other assays in 76.5–86.5% of cases. Identification of HPV genotype by GeneFinder and PANArray corresponded with that by direct sequencing in 88.9% and 84.8% of sequenced samples. This study demonstrated that HC2 and the two real-time PCR assays could be used for routine HPV screening, and the other genotyping assays can be applied for epidemiologic surveillance.