Three post-harvest fields each in four rice growing areas, Iri, Naju, Jinju and Taegu were randomly selected and surveyed during December 1986 to examine sclerotial density of Rhizoctonia solani overwintering in the field. Surface soil of $0.09m^2$ area was sampled in each field with three replications and sieved to collect sclerotia. Germiability and pathogenicity of collected sclerotia were examined in the laboratory. Number of sclerotia $({ imes}10^6)/ha$ in Iri, Naju, Jinju, and Taegu was estimated from the sample as 2.7, 1.2, 0.7 and 0.6, respectively. Based on sample variance with simple random sampling in each area, number of sampling required for estimating average sclerotial density with the precision of 10% apart from a chance of 1 in 20 was calculated to 41, 132, 232, and 395 for Iri, Naju, Jinju and Taegu, respectively. Percentage of germination of sampled sclerotia on potato sucrose agar (PSA) ranged from 42 to 78% depending on the area, and averaged 60%. About 49% of the germinated sclerotia were pathogenic to a rice cultivar Jinheung that was used to test pathogenicity of the sclerotia. Proportion of viable sclerotia that have both germiability and pathogenicity was thus estimated to 0.29 of total sclerotia collected. R. solani cultures obtained from the sclerotia could be distinguished into three groups based on colony morphology on PSA. Size and number of sclerotia formed on PSA differed between group but were not associated with pathogenicity to Jinheung.