Genetic diversity of 31 rice varieties including 25 japonica and 6 indica varieties was evaluated using a combination of 19 microsatellite or simple sequence repeats (SSRs) and 28 random decamer oligonucle-otide primers. All 19 microsatellite primer sets representing 19 loci in the rice genome showed polymorphisms among the 31 varieties and revealed 91 alleles with an average of 4.80 bands per primer. Also all 28 random decamer primers used were informative and generated 114 non-redundant bands with a mean of 4.07 bands. Microsatellite markers detected higher number of alleles than random primers .although the mean difference was not statistically significant. A cluster analysis based on Nei＇s genetic distances calculated from the 205 bands resolved the 31 varieties into two major groups that correspond to indica and japonica subspecies, which is consistent with the genealogical information. As few as six random decamer primers or a combination of one microsatellite and four random decamer primers were sufficient to uniquely differentiate all 31 varieties. These combinations would be potentially useful in rice variety protection and identification considering that 25 out of 31 varieties used in this study are japonica rices with high grain quality and have close make up.