Objective This study was aimed to investigate the prevalence of metabolic syndrome in the elderly population of Anhui province and analyze the characteristics of subgroups of males and females. Methods We conducted questionnaire surveys and physical examinations among 7182 residents over 18 years old at the surveillance regions in Anhui province using the multi-stage stratified cluster random sampling method. 2415 subjects who were over 60 years old and with complete information were included in the factor analysis of metabolic syndrome. Results The prevalence of metabolic syndrome was 20.75% for the overall population, 16.78% for males and 24.31% for females (χ²=20.754,P<0.001). The average waist circumference, HDL-c were higher for males than females (P<0.001), while systolic blood pressure and LDL-c was higher for females than males (P<0.05). Factor analysis extracted four main factors whose cumulative contribution of variance accounted to 75.666% and 75.614% for males and females, respectively. The top four factors for males were overweight, high blood pressure, high blood glucose and dyslipidemia. The top four factors for females were overweight, dyslipidemia, high blood pressure and high blood glucose. Conclusion Overweight, dyslipidemia, high blood pressure and high blood glucose were the main manipestations of metabolic syndrome in the elderly population of Anhui province.