Objective To study the association between the number of area‐level and individual‐level social participation items and cognitive function in the community‐dwelling older populations of three towns in Hokkaido, Japan. Methods A survey on the frequency of social participation was mailed to those in the Japan Gerontological Evaluation Study 2013 who were aged ≥65 years, were not certified as needing long‐term care, and lived in Higashikawa, Higashikagura, or Biei. A subset of participants aged 70–74 years completed the Japanese version of the Montreal Cognitive Assessment in a home visit survey. Both the area‐level and individual‐level social participation and demographic information were obtained on the self‐administered questionnaire. A multilevel analysis using a generalized linear mixed‐effects model was used to examine the association between variables in the area‐level and individual‐level social participation items and cognitive function. Results Out of 4042 respondents, data from 2576 were used in the area‐level analysis. Of those, 180 were aged 70–74 years and completed the home visit survey for the individual‐level analysis. A greater number of higher social participation items at the individual level was associated with higher cognitive function scores after adjusting for area‐level social participation variables and confounders (regression coefficient: 0.19; 95% confidence interval: 0.03, 0.35). There were no significant associations between area‐level social participation item averages and individual‐level cognitive function scores. Conclusions Older populations participating in many kinds of social activities exhibited preserved cognitive function even after adjusting for area‐level social participation variables. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.