This volume contains the proceedings of RTA-93, the Fifth International Conference on Rewriting Techniques and Applications, held in Montreal, Canada, in June 1993. The volume includes three invited lectures, "Rewrite Techniques in Theorem Proving" (L. Bachmair); "Proving Properties of Typed Lambda Terms: Realizability, Covers, and Sheaves", (J. Gallier); and "On Some Algorithmic Problems for Groups and Monoids", (S.J. Adian). It also features full versions of 29 papers selected from 91 submissions, 6 system descriptions, and a list of open problems in the field. The papers cover many topics: term rewriting; termination; graph rewriting; constraint solving; semantic unification, disunification and combination; higher-order logics; and theorem proving, with several papers on distributed theorem proving, theorem proving with constraints and completion.