As an essential water ecosystem in rural areas, the conditions of ponds are closely related to agriculture activities, and daily life and health status of humans. In order to investigate the contents of organic matters and nutrients in the surface sediments of rural ponds around the western part of Lake Poyang, surface sediments of 23 ponds in 4 counties of the region were collected and analyzed from 2018 to 2019, and correlation and difference analyses were undertaken to identify the pollution sources of the sediments. Moreover, comprehensive pollution index method and principal component analysis were carried out for the evaluation of sediment pollution in ponds. Results showed that the contents of organic matter, total organic carbon (TOC), total nitrogen (TN) and total phosphorus (TP) were 5.81%±2.16%, 2.46%±1.02%, (6.48±2.35) mg/g and (1.89±0.80) mg/g, respectively. The contents of three inorganic nitrogen in sediments followed the sequence of ammonia>nitrate>nitrite. Sediment TP content was greatly affected by washing wastewater. In addition, dredging and circulating significantly reduced the TN and TOC pollution in sediments. Results of comprehensive pollution index showed that the ratio of ponds assessed with heavy pollution and moderate pollution were 95.65% and 4.35%, respectively, and the average pollution level was heavy pollution. And the results of principle component analysis showed that the pollution state of P18 was the worst, while that of P6 was the least. The correlation index of comprehensive pollution index and total score of principle component analysis was 0.92, indicating the results of these two evaluation methods were relatively consistent. The results of this study can provide data and technical support for the ecological restoration of rural ponds around the western part of Lake Poyang by analyzing their sediment nutrient contents, pollution sources and pollution status.