The aims of this study are to imvestigate the changes seen in rural kitchens and the factors affecting the modernization of agrarian kitchen space in mountain areas, and to compare them with those in the plains. The major findings are as follows. 1) The kitchen space in mountain areas remained in the state of a combined style(depicting both western and traditional styles), while the kitchen space in the plains after the 1980s showed a tendency toward the western style. Generally speaking, the physical state of kitchens in mountain farmhouses, therefore, was at a low level in comparison with that of the plains. 2) The kitchen improvement projects of Sae-Ma-Eul Movement fostered a trend toward the western and combined style kitchens in the plains, but it did exert a little influence only on a part of the four mountain areas, and it resu]led in a combination of both styles. 3) Among the socio-demographic characteristics under consideratien. only the level of education achieved by the wi fe was found to be a determinant factor of the kitchen type in the mountain areas. but the level of education achieved by the husband and the family life cycle were two determinant factors in the plains. Under the category of family life style. the factors affecting the kitchen type in the mountain areas were cooking-heating fuel and the position of the refrigerator, while the main factors in p]ains were the place and the method of eating. cooking-heating fuel, the position of refrigerator, and numbers of family-memorials.