High power lasers provide a controllable and precise energy source in surface transformation hardening. A careful control of the process is needed in order that the surface layer of the material reaches the austenizing temperature, but that it does not melt. In order to achieve this the results of theoretical and experimental studies on the laser surface hardening of a medium carbon steel are described. A two-dimensional computer program, which can be used generally for the determination of transient temperature distributions in welding and heat treatment, was established on the basis of the finite element method. For the confirmation of the accuracy of the numerical analysis, a medium carbon steel (SM 45C) of 5mm thickness was heat-treated with a 1kW CW CO$_{2}$ laser machine, while the traverse speed and the distance from the focal point (defocused distance) were varied. Experimental and numerical results showed a similar tendency in correlations between the hardened zone shape and the process parameters. With increasing beam spot diameter the width and depth of the hardened zone increased for relatively small beam spot diameters, but decreased rapidly after reaching the maximum value, while with increasing traverse speed the width and depth of the hardened zone decreased monotonously. Too small beam spot diameters are to be avoided, since the surface melting would lower the surface hardness and produce an uneven surface which may be unacceptable because of the possible requirement for subsequent machining. It could be observed that for a given traverse speed and laser power input there exists a optimal range of the beam spot diameter, which produce a large width of the hardened zone but no melting on the surface.