The study was intended to identify the effect of the rural development projects (comprehensive improvement of the seats of Eup and Myeon and regional unit comprehensive development projects) on the quality of life in rural areas against local residents living in areas subject to those projects by means of structural equation modeling based on covariance structure analysis. The result indicated that perception factors affecting the quality of life for residents in rural areas by the projects included ‘improvement in spatial environment’, ‘increase in vitality of rural areas’, and ‘promotion of community activities.’ It was also suggested that ‘improvement in spatial environment’ and ‘increase in vitality of rural areas’ have significantly positive effect on the quality of life for residents in rural areas while the former has relatively higher correlation. In comparison between comprehensive improvement of the seats of Eup and Myeon and regional unit comprehensive development projects, it was analyzed that all the perception factors of the comprehensive improvement of the seats of Eup and Myeon have effect on the quality of life for residents in rural areas indicating that comprehensive improvement of the seats of Eup and Myeon is more effective than regional unit comprehensive development projects in promoting the community activities. It means that existing rural development projects have been promoted to improve spatial environment rather than improving the quality of life for residents in rural areas. Thus, it is considered that the rural development projects in future should seek for a sense of community so that they can induce voluntary participation by local residents.