Although the design of magnetic bearing needs a systematic optimization du e to several design variables, constraints, geometric limitations, nonlinearities, and so on, the present for magnetic bearings have been conducted in the linear region of the characteristics for magnetic by trial and error considering design constraints. This article, therefore, provides the possibility of a genetic algorithm(GA) based optimization with two dimensional-nonlinear finite element magnetic field analysis for design of a radial heteropolar magnetic bearing. The magnetic bearing design by GA based optimization makes good agreements with that by a commercial optimization software DOT using the sensitivity analysis.