Reference X-ray powder patterns and the crystal structures of the lanthanide compounds, BaR2ZnO5, in which R = La, Nd, Sm, Eu, Gd, Dy, Ho, Y, Er, or Tm, were determined by the X-ray Rietveld refinement technique. A structural trend was confirmed for this series of compounds. The compounds with smaller ionic radii (R = Sm, Eu, Gd, Dy, Ho, Y, Er, or Tm) are isostructural to the orthorhombic "green phase" (BaY2CuO5). R is seven-fold coordinated inside a monocapped trigonal prism. These prisms share edges to form wave-like chains parallel to the long b-axis. The BaR2ZnO5 compounds which contain larger size R (La and Nd) crystallise in the tetragonal space group I4/mcm. The structure consists of ZnO4 tetrahedra (instead of planar CuO4 groups as found in BaR2CuO5) with 10-fold coordinated bicapped square prismatic Ba and 8-fold coordinated bicapped trigonal prismatic R ions between them. The lattice parameters for each group of compounds are given. 24 refs.