Objectives: This study is to investigate and to test the overall level of nutritional knowledge. attitude. practice and health status of the residents in rural area. Methods: The interview survey was performed in March 2004 with structured questionnaires to 510 respondents of the residents who lived in Muan-Gun of Jeonnam province. The questionnaire was the abridged Scale of the Nutritional Knowledge Attitude Practice(SNKA) and health status as the morbidity, subjective health status, health management, and health examination. The covariate, F-test or t-test, and Chi-squire method were used for some of the cross-sectional data. Results: Average weight of nutritional knowledge was $10.64{pm}5.98$ by SNKA of the 20 items(0-20). Average weight of nutritional attitude practice was $64.59{pm}7.72$ by SNKA of the 20 items(20-80). The level of the nutritional knowledge was lower than the level of the nutritional attitude practice. 77.3% of the respondents have been health management, 49.6% of the respondents have been health examination. A majority of the respondents(31.3%) had disease, while 13.5% of the respondents had chronic disease, and 17.8% of the respondents had acute disease. The level of nutritional knowledge and general characteristics was positively correlated while the relationships were positive between nutritional knowledge and health status, and between nutritional attitude practice and health status. Conclusion: These results suggested that education programs of the nutritional knowledge were necessary for the residents of rural area. And behavior change of the nutritional knowledge were necessary for the residents of rural area. Further research would be required to specify the necessities and operation researches.