An object of the present invention is to provide a water absorbent having excellent gel properties and showing excellent properties when used in a water-absorbing material of a sanitary/hygienic material such as paper diaper. Moreover, another object of the present invention is to provide a water absorbent which is safe and excellent in liquid permeability, and in which an amount of liquid permeability improver for improving the liquid permeability is reduced. The water absorbent is made from a water-absorbing resin prepared by a specific polymerization method and having a high degree of cross-linking, a high liquid holding property and a high gel strength (its swelling pressure of gel layer of is 35 kdyne/cm2 or more). This water absorbent is further processed to have a particular particle size distribution (95 wt % or more of its particles are less than 850ƒÊm but not less than 106ƒÊm, and logarithmic standard deviation (ƒĐƒÄ) is in a range of 0.25 to 0.45) and then surface cross-linked. After that, a liquid permeability improver is added therein.