An electric sanding machine has a housing with a drive device disposed therein, a base plate disposed under the housing, and a driven shaft for driving the base plate. A sanding device is attached to the base plate. The housing has a drive device housing part substantially perpendicular to the base plate and a grip housing part substantially parallel to the base plate. A cross section of the housing in a vertical direction is substantially L-shaped. The drive device is disposed in the drive device housing part while the driven shaft is located in the grip housing part so that the drive device is departed from the driven shaft in a radius direction of the driven shaft. With this arrangement, the sanding machine is provided with stronger power and has a smaller contour size which may be controlled more effectively.