An engine exhaust gas recirculation system has an intake passage (2) connected to feed an air/fuel mixture to an internal combustion engine and an exhaust passage (1) connected to discharge an exhaust gas from the internal combustion engine. An exhaust gas recirculation passage (3) is provided for feeding a portion of the exhaust gas of the exhaust passage into a cylinder of the engine such that a laminar distribution is produced in the cylinder formed by air/fuel mixture adjacent to the ignition plug and the recirculated exhaust gas distributed about the air/fuel mixture. The exhaust gas recirculation passage may open in the vicinity of an intake valve of the engine or open into the cylinder above the bottom dead center of the piston. The flow of recirculated exhaust gas may be controlled by pressure, for example by the inlet and exhaust valves of the engine and/or by a pressure control valve (31, 34). Alternatively, the exhaust gas recirculation may be controlled in a multicylinder engine by a distributor (20) which may be controlled by an engine "roughness" control signal. The EGR may be computed from outputs of an air flow sensor (7) and an intake manifold pressure sensor (50).