Though their high importance, the improvement of aromatic rice has been relatively slow. Historically, aromatic rice is cultivated in small areas of Bangladesh. According to conventional taxonomy, Bangladeshi (Indian sub-continent) aromatic rice has been identified as indicas (Khush et al., 2000). Most of the aromatic landraces are low-yielding and medium-fine grain with a strong aroma. After the introduction of high-yielding rice varieties, the cultivation of landraces reduced drastically. As a result, much aromatic rice, as well as other landraces, have already been lost and many are on the verge of extinction (Singh et al., 2000). But these native rice varieties traditionally cultivated by farmers may contain a substantial genetic diversity which can be a source of germplasm for genetic enhancements of cultivated rice varieties (Choudhury et al., 2013).Traditionally morphological or physiological traits, as well as protein or isozyme markers, are used to assess genetic diversity in plants. But they are greatly biased by the environment, need a long time for assessment and show low polymorphism between the genotypes (Chakravarthi and Naravaneni, 2006). In contrast, modern biotechnology provide us molecular markers which are independent of environmental factors, show high polymorphism between the genotypes, allow easy and quick analysis of loci distributed among the plant genome (Chakravarthi and Naravaneni, 2006). As a result, molecular markers have become distinct, reliable and efficient tool for characterization, conservation, management of germplasm. Among the PCR based DNA markers, microsatellites or SSRs (simple sequence repeats) are highly preferred for gene tagging and gene mapping efforts as they have high level of polymorphism content and versatility. They are tandemly repeats of simple sequence which may be a short motif of di, tri, or tetra-nucleotides (Li et al., 2004). SSR markers are also preferred in genetic diversity analysis, molecular map construction and genetic mapping, construction of fingerprinting, genetic purity test, analysis of rice lines diversity test etc. due to their reproducibility and amenability for automation, quickness, simplicity, rice polymorphism stability, accuracy, etc. (McCouch et al., 2002; Ma et al., 2011; Roy et al.,2015). Genetically distant and morphologically close accessions could also be identified by SSR markers (Sajib et al., 2012). In the present study, twenty aromatic landraces of Bangladesh along with four improved aromatic varieties were analyzed for genetic variation using SSR markers. The special objective was to find out the genetic diversity and the relationship of aromatic landraces, to assist in base broadening of the germplasm for future aromatic rice breeding programs. MATERIALS AND METHODS: Collection of genetic materials experimental material comprised of 20 aromatic rice landraces and 4 improved varieties. These rice genotypes were collected from Bangladesh Institute of Nuclear Agriculture, BINA, Mymensingh and Bangladesh Rice Research Institute, BRRI, Gazipur.Methods for SSR genotyping DNA were extracted from the leaf tissues of 21 days old seedlings (a single seedling per genotype), based on a modified acetyl trimethyl ammonium bromide (CTAB) method described by (Stein et al., 2001). Twelve SSR markers, one from each chromosome were selected. Among them the primers that showed the polymorphic band was selected and primers that showed the monomorphic band was excluded. Finally, 10 microsatellite primers were selected for final PCR amplification. Detailed information on the primers we used can be found in the web database (http://www.genetics.org). Polymerase chain reactions (PCRs) were performed in a thermocycler (G-STROM, GSI, England). The volume of PCR solution was 10μl, containing 3μl of diluted template DNA, 1.5 μl of 10X× PCR buffer (Mg2+free), 0.2μl of TaqDNA polymerase, 0.25μl 10mM of deoxynucleotide triphosphates (dNTPs), 1.8μl of Mg2+, and 0.5μl of each forward and reverse primers and 2.25μl of double-distilled H2O. The following PCR profile used an initial denaturation step for 5 minutes at 94°C (hot start and stand separation). After that 35 cycles of denaturation at 94°C for 1 minute, 35 cycles of annealing at 55°C for 1 minute, 35 cycles of primer elongation at 72°C for 2 minute and then final elongation at 72°C for 5 minutes. Amplified products were stored at -20°C. The amplified fragments were separated on 8% (w/v) native polyacrylamide gels. The electrophoreses were performed at 70v for 2 h in 1× TBE [Tris-borateethylenediaminetetra acetic acid (EDTA)] buffer, and the gels were stained with ethidium bromide for 25-30 min, kept in dark, and then visualized using an Alpha-Image gel documentation unit linked to a PC Data analysis: The most intensely amplified fragments were determined by comparing the migration distance of amplified fragments relative to the molecular weight of known size marker, 100 base pair (100bp) DNA-ladder, using Alpha-Ease FC 5.0 software (Alpha Innotech, USA). The band profiles for each SSR primer pair were scored for distinct and reproducible bands as a present (1) or absent (0). Jaccard’s similarity coefficient values were selected, pairwise genetic distance was calculated and dendro-gram (Nei, 1973) based on similarity coefficient values were generated using the unweighted pair-group method with arithmetic mean (UPGMA) by using the online dendrogram construction utility Dendro UPGMA (http://genomes.urv.es/UPGMA) (Garcia-Vallvé et al., 1999).