Background: Cardiovascular disease (CVD) has several traditional risk factors (RF), and some of them are potentially modifiable. Aim: To determine the prevalence of most common risk,factors in adult population in Talca in Central Chile. Subjects and methods. We studied 1007 subjects aged 18 to 74 years (66% women), living ill Talca, selected by a probability sampling. They answered a questionnaire and anthropometry, blood pressure, lipid profile and blood glucose were measured. Results: Thirty seven percent of subjects smoked, 70.10% had a body mass index over 25 kg/m(2) and 41% bad an abnormally high circumference. High blood pressure was found in 37% (36% of these subjects were unaware of ibis condition), 44.5% bad hypercholesterolemia, 27.5% bad low HDL cholesterol, 40.10% had hypertriglyceridemia and 26.3% had high blood glucose levels. Conclusions: There is a high prevalence of risk factors for CVD in adult population from Talca. The prevalence of risk factors is higher than that reported by the 2003 National Health Survery.