In this study, the seismic fragility assessment of low-rise and mid-rise reinforced concrete frame buildings which constitute approximately 75 % of the total building stock in Turkey is investigated to quantify the earthquake risk. The inventory used in this study is selected from D&uuml / zce damage database which was compiled after the devastating 1999 earthquakes in the Marmara region. These buildings are not designed according to the current code regulations and the supervision in the construction phase is not adequate. The building database is divided into sub-classes according to the height and absence of infilled walls. Each building in the database is represented by an equivalent single degree of freedom system with three structural parameters: period, strength, and post-elastic stiffness ratio. The ground motion records are selected from different parts of the world covering a wide range of characteristics. The capacity of the structure is represented for each sub-class by the limit states. Hence, a set of fragility curves for low- and mid-rise reinforced concrete structures are developed by making use of the building characteristics in the database. The generated fragility curve set is referred as &ldquo / reference&rdquo / since it forms the basis of a parametric study. A parametric study is conducted to examine the influence of post-elastic stiffness ratio, simulation and sampling techniques, sample size, limit state definition and degrading behavior on the final fragility curves. Estimated damage distribution after two consecutive major earthquakes is compared with the actual field data in order to investigate the validity of the generated fragility curves.