We have demonstrated that the correction factor k _n = A _eff/(πw ²), where ω = MFD/2 (MFD: mode field diameter), is above 1.20 for photonic crystal fibers (PCFs) with structural parameters in the range of d/Λ ≅ 0.40 to 0.90 (d/Λ ratio of hole diameter d and pitch Λ). By using the far-field scanning (FFS) technique and the finite difference method, the results of experimental measurements and numerical simulations differed by only 0.9 to 3.0% for two types of PCFs. The finding that k _n ≠ 1.0 for PCFs indicates that their electrical field distribution is non-Gaussian and cannot be determined by assuming a conventional step-index distribution for PCFs. It was also found that the ITU-T Petermann II definition is the most suitable for MFD measurements of PCFs with non-Gaussian distribution.