253 rice germplasm accessions from worldwide were used to evaluate the phenotype variation of heading date, and detect quantitative trait locus(QTL) responsible for heading date. The results revealed that the heading date of the rice accessions varied from 45-100 days with a variation coefficient of 13.12%-13.39% and a broad heritability of 50.94%. And, 60 significant associated SNPs responding to 29 QTLs for heading date were detected with genome-wide association analysis(GWAS) method. 23 candidate genes within 15 QTLs intervals possibly associated with heading date were predicted, of which encodes the putative proteins including plant florin-like phosphatidylethanolamine binding protein, zinc finger proteins with the motif of C2H2/CCCH/B-box, and transcription factors containing MYB/MADS/ PHD-finger/AP2 domains.