Given two Banach spaces E, F, let B(E, F) be the set of all bounded linear oper-ators from E into F, ∑r the set of all operators of finite rank r in B(E, F), and ∑#r the number of path connected components of ∑r. It is known that ∑r is a smooth Banach submani-fold in B(E, F) with given expression of its tangent space at each A ∈∑r. In this paper, the equality ∑#r = 1 is proved. Consequently, the following theorem is obtained: for any non-negative integer r, ∑r is a smooth and path connected Banach submanifold in B(E, F) with the tangent space TA∑r={B∈B(E,F): BN(A) R(A)} at each A∈∑r if dim F = ∞. Note that the routine method can hardly be applied here. So in addition to the nice topological and geometric property of ∑r the method presented in this paper is also interesting. As an application of this result, it is proved that if E = IRn and F = IRm, then ∑r is a smooth and path connected submanifold of B(IRn,IRm) and its dimension is dim ∑r = (m + n)r- r2 for each r, 0 ≤ r < min{n,m}.