The classification of rain types is essential to understand the microphysical characteristics of regional precipitation, the construction of multi-source precipitation fusion error model, and the radar quantitative precipitation estimation. Based on the C-band dual-polarization radar data of Nanjing University of Information Science and Technology and the observation data of raindrop disdrometer in Nanjing from 2015 to 2016, this paper proposes a radar rain type classification method applicable to Nanjing area, and compares and verifies the classification results of rain types. Firstly, 36 typical stratiform and convective precipitation processes were filtered out based on the time series data of the rainfall rate of raindrop disdrometer, the ground-based radar reflectivity factor Plane Position Indication (PPI) and Time Height Indication (THI). Then, the raindrop size distribution (DSD) parameters of typical stratiform (convective) precipitation at three raindrop disdrometer stations were counted: normalized droplet number concentration (NW) and median raindrop diameter (D0), and the log10(NW)-D0 classification line applicable to Nanjing area was fitted. The classification line based on the raindrop disdrometer data is applied to the ground-based radar DSD parameters retrieved based on the variational method to classify the ground-based radar rain types. According to the time-height distribution of rain type separation index in typical stratiform (convective) processes, and comparing with DPR precipitation classification products, the classification effect is verified. Finally, the classification results are applied to radar classification quantitative precipitation estimation to further illustrate the application effect of precipitation classification. The results show that the fitting classification lines of the three raindrop disdrometer stations in Nanjing are very consistent, and the typical stratiform (convective) processes of three stations can be well separated on both sides of the classification line; Compared with the DPR precipitation classification products, it is found that the classification effect of the classification line in Nanjing is higher than that of other typical rain types classification methods, and the recognition rate of stratiform and convective precipitation is the highest, with 84.56% and 72.64% respectively; The accuracy of radar quantitative precipitation estimation based on rain type classification is better than that of unclassified rain measurement formulas, and classified R(Kdp) has the best performance among all classified rain measurement formulas (CC=0.7648，MAE=3.0952 mm/h，RMSE=5.4297 mm/h).Classified R(Zh) has the best performance in stratiform precipitation retrieval, classified R(Kdp) has the best performance in convective precipitation retrieval, while classified R(Zh,Zdr)has the most obvious improvement on the accuracy of the original rain measurement formula.