A series of polished and unpolished -nanostructured carbons “nanographites” obtained from the pyrolysis of various precursor types have been systematically studied by both Raman spectroscopy and x-ray diffraction. The ratio between the intensities of the disorder-induced band and the first-order graphite band (/) commonly used up to now to estimate the “crystallite” diameter displays, in the case of polished graphitized carbons, clear spatial heterogeneities and can lead to the overestimation of the intrinsic structural disorder. The full width at half maximum of the band, which is shown to be insensitive to the polishing process, exhibits a linear dependence on the mean “crystallite” diameter [FWHM() 14 430/] and therefore can be used for an accurate structural characterization of these nanographites.