This cross-sectional study was carried out to estimate the prevalence of type 2 diabetes mellitus and its' risk factors in an urbanizing rural community of Bangladesh. Two villages were randomly selected from the rural areas of Gazipur district and total 975 subjects (> or =20 years), were included following simple random procedure. Capillary blood glucose levels, fasting blood glucose (FBG) levels and 2-hour after 75 g oral glucose load (OGTT) were measured. Height, weight, waist and hip circumferences and blood pressure were measured. The study population was lean with mean body mass index (BMI) of 20.48. The total prevalence of type 2 diabetes was 8.5%, men showed higher prevalence (9.4%) compare to women (8.0%). Increasing age and higher BMI were found to be significant risk factors following both FBG and OGTT. The study has shown that prevalence of diabetes has increased in the populations who are in transitional stage of urbanization, and may indicate an epidemiological transition due to fast expanding urbanization.