In the course of our research on normal alkanols, the crystal structure of 1-pentanol has been solved by applying Patterson-search methods to laboratory powder X-ray diffraction data recorded on a curved position-sensitive detector (CPS120) at 183 K. The crystal structure was refined with the rigid-body Rietveld least-squares method. The cell is monoclinic, space group P 2 1 ∕ c , Z =4, and the cell parameters are a =15.592(9) Å, b =4.349(1) Å, c =9.157(1) Å, β =104.7(7)°, V =600.6(3) Å 3 . There is one molecule in the asymmetric unit with the O–H bond in gauche conformation with respect to the alkyl skeleton. Packing is defined by the hydrogen bonds linking the 1-pentanol molecules along zigzag chains parallel to b .