Purpose : To establish reference doses of periapical radiography in Chonnam Province, KOREA. Materials and Methods : The target-skin distances were measured for dental patient’s 1235 exposures including 345 mandibular molar areas. Each periapical radiation exposure was simulated with exactly the same patients exposure parameters and the simulated radiation doses were measured utilizing Mult-O-Meter (Unfors Instruments, Billadal, Sweden). The measurements were done in 44 dental clinics with 49 dental x-ray sets in Chonnam Province for one or two weeks at each dental clinic during year 2006. Results : The third quartile patient surface doses were 2.8 mGy for overall periapical exposures and 3.2 mGy for periapical mandibular molar exposures. Conclusion : The third quartile patient surface doses in Chonnam Province can be used as a guide to accepted clinical practice to reduce patient radiation exposure for the surveyed reference doses were below the recommended dental periapical radiography dose of 7 mGy by IAEA. (Korean J Oral Maxillofac Radiol 2009; 39 : 195-8)