The purpose of this study is to find the characteristics of design council criteria of metropolitan cities in Koreas. For comparative analysis, four main concepts are used ; 1) self-administering vs discretionary 2) prescriptive vs performance 3) conformity vs contrast 4) point system of criteria. The results of this study were as follows; 1) there were three types of cirteria; strong discretionary (DG), discretionary oriented (BS, US) and combination type (SL, DJ, ICN, GJ) 2) structural properties of forms are controlled by prescriptive criteria, and layout or design elements by performance criteria 3) visual openness and diversity are main items of most metropolitan cities 4) street-faced design was neglected but tended to focus on the self-contained layout 5) visual density indexes were diversified from elevation blockage degree. For further advanced research, it is necessary to investigate the actual effects and differences of regulative types - prescriptive vs performance, and of each design criteria, especially prescriptive ones in improving the design quality.