The objectives of this study are to estimate the prevalence of diabetes mellitus (DM) and to identify risk factors associated with fasting blood sugar in a rural adult population. We carried out a cross - sectional study on the residents over 30-year old. Among the 1077 eligible subjects, 725 persons responded to the study;the study consisted of interview on family and past history of DM, anthropometry, blood pressure, and blood sugar level in each subjects. Only 707 subjects of 725 participants had fasting blood sugar(FBS) examined and the rest, 18 subjects were had casual blood sugar examined due to failure of fasting over 8 - hour. When subjects had $FBSgeq140mg/dl$, 2 hours postprandial blood sugar level was checked after 75g oral glucose loading. The prevalence of DM was 8.9%, and age standarized prevalence rate adjusted to Korean population of 1995 was 5.8%. Mean and SD of fasting blood sugar in men was $99.8{pm}22.6$, and in women was $111.5{pm}29.9$. Mean levels of fasting blood sugar were significantly higher in women than in man and as their ages advanced the prevalences increased in both sexes. PP2 blood sugar levels were significantly higher in elder age and in persons with higher FBS levels than others. The risk factors associated with FBS were past history of diabetes, sex, socioeconomic status and waist - to - hip circumference ratio;the risk of diabetes was increased in female, people with past DM history, central obesity and low socioeconomic state. The low socioeconomic status associated with DM in this study, which is different from other study results, should be pursued in further studies.