Jianbei An Department of Mathematics University of Auckland Private Bag 92019 Auckland New Zealand Charles W. Eaton Department of Mathematics University of Auckland Private Bag 92019 Auckland New Zealand Title: The p-local rank of a block Abstract: We generalize the $p$-local rank of a finite group, introduced by G. Robinson, to a $p$-block of a finite group and show that this has analogous properties. Current status: preprint