Volatile terpenoids of carrots were measured by the direct headspace sampling method(DHS) with gas chromatography as a study for the breeding of high quality carrots. Using this method, 7 terpenoids such as α-pinene, β-pinene, β-myrcene, α-terpinene, limonene, γ-terpinene, and terpinolene were clearly separated. However α-phellandrene was not clearly separated from β-myrcene. In addition to this, higher boiling point compounds such as terpinen-4-ol, bornyl acetate, and α-bisbolol were not found. The coefficients of determination(r²) for the 7 terpenoids were higher than 0.99 and the standard curves were highly significant. Four replicated samples using this method demonstrated great reproducibility; the coefficidnt of variation (C.V.) for α-pinene, β-pinene, β-myrcene, limonene, γ-terpinene, terpinolene, and total terpenoids were 6.8, 6.8, 8.4, 7.1, 3.8, 10.1, 7.1%. Sixty five carrot cultivars breeded worldwide were evaluated for the 7 terpenoids and total terpenoids; the range for α-pinene, β-pinene, β-myrcene, α-terpinene, limonene, γ-terpinene, terpinolene, and total terpenoids were 0.28∼2.48 ppm, 0.35∼1.87 ppm, 0.56∼1.51 ppm, 0 ppm, 0.59∼1.84 ppm, 0.87∼3.33 ppm, 5.15∼35.81 ppm, and 9.07∼42.30 ppm, respectively. Big differences in each terpenoid and total terpenoids were found among cultivars. On the total terpenoids of the 65 cultivars, 5 cultivars(7.7%) contained less than 10 ppm, 15 cultivars (23.1%) 10∼11.99 ppm, 14 cultivars(21.5%) 12∼13.99 ppm, 9 cultivars(13.8%) 14∼15.99 ppm, 10 cultivars(15.4%) 16∼17.99 ppm, 4 cultivars(6.2%) 18w19.99 ppm, 5 cultivars(7.7%) 20∼29.99 ppm, and 3 cultivars(4.6%) were higher than 30 ppm. Generally, cultivars developed in Japan contained less total terpenoids than cultivars developed in Europe and America.