A community study was conducted to determine the prevalence of depressive symptoms and syndromes in 11–16-year-old girls. Girls from three secondary schools (1072 girls in total) were administered questionnaires and 375 were selected for direct interview. The estimated prevalence for current major depressive disorder (within the past month) for the population was 3.6%, and for the past year was 6.0%. Scores on the self-report questionnaire of mood disturbance increased with age, as did the prevalence of depressive disorder. A large proportion of interviewed girls reported depressive symptoms which did not meet the DSM-III-R criteria for major depressive disorder. The estimated prevalence of this ‘partial syndrome’ group was 8.9% for a current episode and 20.7% for the past year.