[Objective] The current study aimed at studying the diversity of gut microbiota on young people living in rural Harbin and urban Harbin. [Methods] A combination of polymerase chain reaction (PCR) and denaturing gradient gel electrophoresis (DGGE) was used to examine the diversity of gut microbiota of the subjects. Based on the DGGE profile, the similarity was performed by analysis of clustering and PCA; the analysis of diversity was evaluated by the Shannon-Weine index, richness and eveness; and the composition of gut microbiota was characterized by sequencing of the common and special bands of the lanes in DGGE profile. Based on the PCR, the species diversity of Lactobacillus and Bifidobacterium in the gut of rural subjects and urban subjects were analyzed. [Results] There was a separated tendency in structure of gut microbiota between rural and urban residents of Harbin, and the similarity of intestinal flora between rural and urban residents was lower than the similarity among rural people or urban people. The differences of diversity of gut microbiota between urban people and rural persons were not significant. The results of sequencing showed that the compositions of gut microbiota of urban subjects and rural subjects were same in phylum level, but different in the level of species and genus. The results of PCR showed that Lactobacillus and Bifidobacterium were prevalence bacteria in the gut of rural and urban young subjects of Harbin, and there was no significant difference in detection rate on the species of Lactobacillus and Bifidobacterium between rural subjects and urban subjects. The detection rate of L. plantarum, L. casei and L. salivarius was nearly 100%, and B. longum and B. breve was about 90%. [Conclusion] By the present research, the conclusion can be made that the diversity of gut microbiota was not significantly difference between the young subjects from rural Harbin and urban Harbin.