In this study, magnesia stabilized zirconia based nanocrystalline ceramics were produced through a polymer precursor route using gadolinium and boron. The powders were characterized during the various steps by structural and morphological techniques (FT-IR, XRD, and SEM). XRD results proved that a tetragonal phase is predominant for all samples with varying magnesium contents and no monoclinic zirconia solid solution appears. The crystallite sizes of the samples were calculated using Scherrer equation. The smallest crystallite size was obtained for the sample containing Zr/Mg/Ce/Gd/B ratio of 82/0/10/8/0. The lattice parameters were calculated for cubic, tetragonal, hexagonal, and orthorhombic structures. SEM results show all the samples have spherical grains. The average grain diameters were calculated for all the samples. The smallest average grain diameter was obtained for the sample containing Zr/Mg/Ce/Gd/B ratio of 82/0/10/8/0. © 2012 Elsevier Ltd and Techna Group S.r.l. All rights reserved.