A 448 person time field survey of thermal comfort was conducted in rural houses in east Guangdong in 2011-2012, during which the environmental parameters including air tempreture, relative humidity, globe tempreture and air velocity were recorded and the thermal sensation, acceptability and preference of inhabitants were collected. Clothing insulation was found to be a quadratic function of indoor ET*. Thermal sensation was found to be in good linear relationship with air /operation /new effective temperatures, based on which thermal sensation models were established for local inhabitants in rural area. The model shows that the neutral temperature is 26.4℃（ta）, 26.7℃（top）, and 28.5℃（ET*） respectively, and the upper boundary of the 80% acceptable temperature range is 29.0℃（ta）, 29.4℃（top）, and 31.2℃（ET*）in summer respectively. In addition, the preferred temperature in "gray spaces" is higher than that in "absolute spaces" in amount of 0.6℃, indicating that people have lower thermal expectations in gray spaces. Therefore, the architectural features that sets right amount of gray space in traditional architecture should be retained in modern rural residential buildings.