Background: This study investigated associations between type 2 diabetes mellitus and non-traditional lipid measures (total cholesterol (TC)/high-density lipoprotein cholesterol (HDL-C), triglycerides (TG)/HDL-C, and non-HDL-C). Methods: We conducted a community-based, cross-sectional study of 9 078 participants aged 18 years or older (4 768 men and 4 310 women) who lived in the Jidong community, Tangshan, China. The adjusted odds ratios for type 2 diabetes were calculated for every standard deviation change in TC, log-transformed TG, HDL-C, LDL-C, non-HDL-C, TC/HDL-C, and log-transformed TG/HDL-C using multivariate logistic regression analysis. Receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve analysis was used to define the points of maximum sum of sensitivity and specificity for each lipid measure as a predictor for type 2 diabetes. Results: Prevalence of type 2 diabetes was 6.29 %. Higher TC, TG, LDL-C, non-HDL-C, TC/HDL-C, and TG/HDL-C, and lower HDL-C levels were individually associated with type 2 diabetes in multivariate analyses (all P < 0.05). TC/HDL-C was superior at discriminating between participants with and without type 2 diabetes compared with LDL-C (comparing ROC: P < 0.001), HDL-C (P < 0.001), TG (P = 0.012), TC (P < 0.001), non-HDL-C (P = 0.001), and TG/HDL-C (P = 0.03). The cutoff point for TC/HDL-C was 1.30 mmol/L in this population from the Jidong community. Sensitivity and specificity values for TC/HDL-C were 0.77 and 0.53, respectively. Conclusions: TC/HDL-C is associated with type 2 diabetes and is superior to LDL-C and HDL-C as a risk marker in this population.