This paper is conducted to compare the seismic design standard of a bridge column such as the Korean Bridge Design Standard(KBDS), EC 8, NZS 3101 and ATC 32. The KBDS adopted the seismic design requirements in 1992. The earthquake magnitude in Korea is compared with those in the west coast of the USA. It may be said that the current seismic design requirements of the KBDS provides design results, that are too conservative especially for transverse reinforcement details and amounts in reinforced concrete columns. This fact usually creates construction problems in concrete casting, due to congestion of transverse reinforcement. Furthermore, the effective stiffness; $I_{eff}$ depends on both the axial load P/$A_gF_{ck}$ and the longitudinal reinforcement ratio $A_{st}/A_g, so it is the conservative to use the effective stiffness I$_{eff}$ than the gross section stiffness Ig. Seismic design for the transverse reinforcement content of the concrete column was analyzed and considered to have an extreme-fiber compression strain, response modification factor, axial load and effective stiffness etc.c.