The purposes of this study were (a) to investigate the current status of Student's recreation motive and recreation participation in the southern area colleges (b) to compare the difference of the recreation motive and recreation participation of different background students, and (c) to study the correlation between the recreation motive and participation. The target sample of this study was selected from 20 colleges of Tai-nan city/county, Kao-hsiung city/county, and Ping-tung county by questionnaires, that covered all students from freshman to senior (N=1746). After synthetically analysis and discussion, we found the conclusions which detailed as followings: (a) after our further estimation, the statistics showed that there were four factors which will affect the recreation motive. They are respectively named as below: life-social demand, pursuit of satisfaction demand, exercise-health demand, kill time and escape boring. (b) students of different genders were found to have significant difference in all recreation motive, except the "kill time and escape boring". Students of different grades were found to have significant difference in all recreation motives, except the "exercise-health demand". Students from different colleges were found to have significant difference in all kinds of recreation motive. (c) the most popular recreation activity that students participate was "recreational activity", second is "leisured activity", and the "sporting activity" is the last one. (d) students of different genders, grades, and colleges were found to have significant difference in all categories of recreation activities. (e) except artistic and sporty activities had not much significant positive relation with "kill time and escape boring", other categories of recreation activities were found to have significant positive relation with recreation motive factors.