Abstract: Methane emission rates have been continuously measured in the eastern suburb of Guangzhou from 1993 to 1994 by using an automatic sampling and gas chromatographic analyzing system, and the methane emission characteristics and fluxes for red soil paddy fields in south China were obtained for the first time. results show that the diurnal and seasonal variations of methane emission rates in Guangzhou changes with the soil temperature, irrigating conditions and different grown up phase of rice; average methane emission flux for the early rice is 1.60 mg/(m²·h) and that for the late rice is 1.25 mg/(m²·h), and the data are lower than those in other domestic regions; under the normal conditions of local dry moisture irrigating methods, the estimated total methane emission flux from paddy rice fields in both Guangdong Province and Guangxi Province is about 0.26 Tg/a.