Abstract: Power engineers have the responsibility to deliver economically, adequate and quality power to the consumers. In order to achieve this, the power system must be maintained at the desired operating level by suitable modern control strategies. The controlling of power system is becoming increasingly more complex due to large interconnections. The load frequency control is very important in power system operation and control for supplying sufficient and reliable electric power with good quality. This study deals with the application of real coded genetic algorithm for optimizing the gain of a proportional integral controller for load frequency control of interconnected power systems. Non-linearities such as Governor Dead Band (GDB) and Generation Rate Constraints (GRC) for a two-area reheat thermal power system have been included. Floating point representation has been used, since it is more consistent, more precise and leads to faster convergence. The simulation results confirm the designed control performance of the proposed controller.