These studies were made to assess the present stage of resistance of Shigella species to antibiotics and to find characteristics of R-plasmid of these bacteria. From 1986 to 1988, 125 strains of Shigella species were isolated from patients specimens collected in Chung Cheong-do Hospital, Kyunghee Medical Center, city an provincial health & environmental institutes. These specimens were tested for resistance to 12 kinds of antimicrobial agents by agar dilution method. Using Muller-Hinton agar for the assay of drug resistance and Trypticane Soy Broth as propagating medium for conjugation. All the strains (100%) were resistant to one or more antibiotics. Drug resistance patterns of isolated strains were found as the highest resistance to ampicillin (98%) in 1986, to tetracycline (98%) in 1987, to tetracycline (100%) in 1988, all strains were sensitive to gentamicin, amikacin, tobramycin. Chronologically, resistance decreased gradually as it was shown in relation to kanamycin, rifampicin in 1986, 1987 and 1988, (4%, 2%) (4%, 2%) (0%, 0%) respectively. But, resistance was increased year by year as it was shown in relation to tetracycline, nalidixic acid, streptomycin in 1986, 1987, 1988 (89%, 19%, 45%) (98%, 46%, 71%) and (100%, 58%, 88%). The resistance in correlation to more than 5 drugs, which was 13 strains among 47 strains in 1986, 38 strains among 87 strains in 1987, 23 strains among 26 strains in 1988, was increased gradually. In the transfer test of drug resistance by conjugation methods, the rate which was 3 strains (50%) in 1986, 8 strains (62%) in 1987, 3 strains (100%) in 1988, was increased gradually. When the donor strains were conjugated with the recipient strains, the conjugation rate was high in the multiple resistant strains. The relationships of transferring patterns of drug resistance and molecular weight of R-plasmid were variable. However, only a plasmid which has more than 35 Mgd was transferred.