Abstract: Objective To investigate the disparity and determinants of depression of rural elderly among eastern, middle and western regions. Methods China health and retirement longitudinal study dataset of 2013, binary Logistic regression were adopted to analyze determinants of depression among 2 896 rural elderly who were 65 and older. Results The difference of eastern-middle-western depression was statistically significant (χ²=33.63, P<0.001). There were 24.34% depressive elderly from eastern area, 30.11% from middle area and 36.77% from western area. The depression was mainly influenced by gender, marital status, household monthly average expenditure, social activities, drinking, chronical disease and self-rated health (all P<0.05). And having parterns(OR=0.774,95% CI:0.640-0.936), middle monthly household average expenditure(OR=0.797, 95% CI:0.651-0.977), joining in social activities(OR=0.788, 95% CI:0.668-0.930) and drinking(OR=0.789, 95% CI:0.649-0.960) were protective factors of depression, while female(OR=1.736, 95% CI:1.400-2.153), chronical disease(OR=1.328,95% CI:1.091-1.618)and bad self-rated health status (OR=2.924, 95% CI:2.259-3.784) were risk factors. Conclusions Early and effective measures should be taken to prevent and cure depression of rural elderly. And choronical disease need to be prevented to promote rural elderly's health status.