Objectives The epidemiological evidence on the effect of sleep quality on anxiety symptoms has been inconclusive. This study aimed at exploring the relationship between sleep quality and anxiety symptoms in rural China and further validating the association utilizing a meta-analysis.Methods A total of 27,911 participants aged 18–79 years from the Henan Rural Cohort Study completed assessments of sleep quality. Logistic regression and restricted cubic spline analysis was conducted to evaluate the sleep quality with anxiety symptoms. A meta-analysis was used to validate the result of the cross-sectional study.Results Altogether, 6087(21.80%) were poor sleepers and 1557(5.58%) had anxiety symptoms. The odds of anxiety were increased with increment of Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index (PSQI) score after fitting restricted cubic splines. And the poor sleep qualitywas associated with a higher possibility of anxiety symptoms OR(95%CI) (4.61, 3.71-5.73) in men, and (3.56, 3.10-4.10) in women on multivariable analysis. Further stratified analyses showed that the effect of sleep quality and anxiety symptoms could be modified by age, marital status, lifestyle and chronic disease. The meta-analysis showed that pooled OR of anxiety symptoms was significantly higher for poor sleepers (1.49, 1.41-1.56, I 2 =98.9%, P <0.001).Conclusions These findings indicate that poor sleep quality was associated with increased odds of anxiety symptoms. In addition, relationship between poor sleep quality and anxiety symptoms was observed in this rural population, especially in participants aged ≥60 years and those with unhealthy habits or had a chronic disease.