The aim of this study is to explore the risk factors of intimate partner violence among rural and urban women in Malaysia. The study used quantitative method and recruited 3391 respondents in all 14 states in East Malaysia with 2603 ever-partnered respondents and 234 respondents experienced intimate partner violence. The survey was conducted using the 3 translated versions of WHO multi-country questionnaire on women’s health and life experiences version 10 (2003). Ethical considerations were tightly pertained in this study. This study demonstrates several key findings include 59% women who experienced violence came from urban area and 41% from rural area. Regardless of their area, there are no significant differences in terms of domestic issues such as money problems, difficulties at work and family problem that lead to violence but it was significant for the financially dependent women. The risk factors of partner’s substance abuse, partner’s behaviour, past history of women and partner with violence are significant to their area, and the common situations lead to violence is happening more in the urban area compared to rural area. Therefore, it is expected that the results of this study will provide useful guideline and intervention for policy makers and any other stakeholders such as health professionals, NGOs and community to tackle and consider the issue of intimate partner violence in a wide range of the risk factors that women possibly experienced.