Factors that affect the hardness of the zinc electrodeposits in the sulfate electrolyte were investigated. The hardness of zinc deposit was enhanced by increasing the concentration of impurities such as iron and nickel in the bath that changed the crystallographic orientation of the zinc deposit from the strong basal plane to the random orientation. The increase of the concentration of sodium sulfate and current density in iron contained bath improved the hardness of zinc deposit because those were easily codeposited in zinc layer. However the increase of the concentration of sodium sulfate up to 80g/$ell$ in the bath darkened the surface of zinc electrodeposits due to change of morphology by the codeposition of iron.