The X-ray structure of 2-Chloro-1,3-diisopropyl-4,5-dimethylimidazolium dichlorophosphate (2) (obtained from 2-chloro-1,3-diisopropyl-4,5-dimethylimidazolium chloride 1 and POCl 3 in the presence of water) is reported.Dichlorophosphates exist as stable organic salts, M[PO 2 Cl 2 ][2] and act in metal complexes as coordinating ligands [2,3]. Two structure reports of their salts have been mentioned, but they do not include a description of the anion apparently as a consequence from disordering problems [4]. We therefore present the structure of the imidazolium salt 2 obtained from the hydrolysis of POCl 3 [5] in the presence of 1 [6,7]. The salt 2 crystallizes in the orthorhombic space group Pnma, both the ring atoms of the cation and the PCl 2 fragment of the anion lying on crystallographic mirror planes. A view on the interionic distances reveals the presence of separated ions in the unit cell ( Fig. 1); in fact, the closest cation to anion ClϪCl distance [Cl(1)ϪCl(2) 508.2(1) pm] is out of range of the van der Waals radii and even longer than those observed both for the cations [Cl(1)ϪCl(1#) 497.0(1) pm] and the anions [Cl(2)ϪCl(2#) 467.4(1) pm] and even shorter than the closest cation to anion separation. This finding contrasts markedly to the significant ClϪCl interaction in 1 (315.9 pm [7]) and documents the low nucleophilicity of the PO 2 Cl 2 Ϫ anion towards the 2-chloroimidazolium ion. Comparing the structures of the cations in 1 and 2, we detect a change in the orientation of the isopropyl groups and the presence of intraionic CϪHϪCl hydrogen bridges [C(5)ϪH (5) 90(4), H(5)ϪCl(1) 277(3), C(9)ϪH(9) 93(3), H(9)ϪCl(1) 280(3) pm; C(5)ϪH(5)ϪCl(1) 123(2), H(5)ϪCl(1) C(1) 82.5(5), C(9)ϪH(9)ϪCl(1) 118(2), H(9)ϪCl(1)ϪC(1) 81.1(8)°] (Fig. 2) which may be influenced by the absence of interionic ClϪCl interactions in 2.Fig. 1 View on the elemental cell of 2.The structure of the [PO 2 Cl 2 ] Ϫ anion (Fig. 2, tab. 1) follows the expectations of stuctural phosphorus chemistry [8] and the predictions of the VSEPR rule [9]. On comparison with the carbene base adduct of PO 2 Cl (3) we see only minor changes in the structure of the PO 2 Cl fragment underlining the marked nucleophilicity of the carbene ligand there [10], and also the PO bond lengths and OϪPϪO' angles of the [PO 2 F 2 ] Ϫ anion in its alkali metal and ammonia salts [11,12] are very similar. The isoelectronic sulfuryl chloride molecule [13] exhibits the expected shortening of the bond lengths. The widening of the OϪSϪO' bond angle may reflect a lower bond order of the SO bond in comparison with the title anion. Comparison with structural data of [PO 2 Cl 2 ] Ϫ ligand complexes [14Ϫ16] reveals a minor change of the structure of the ligand on coordination apart from some differences in the OϪPϪO' angles. We therefore suggest the metal to oxygen bonds in the coordination compounds of the dichlorophosphate ligand to be mainly of electrostatic nature both in the terminal [14] and bridging [15] coordination mode.