An image forming apparatus includes plural image holding members; an intermediate transfer material; a transfer unit that transfers the toner images onto a recording medium; a density control toner image creating unit that creates a density control toner image at a constant position on each of the image holding members; a density detection unit that detects density of the density control toner image transferred onto a non-image region; and a creation timing control unit that controls timing of creating the density control toner image to create the density control toner image in the non-image region of the intermediate transfer material at a position where a length obtained by integrally multiplying the length obtained by adding the non-image region to the image region along the moving direction of the intermediate transfer material becomes equal to a length obtained by integrally multiplying the circumferential length of the image holding member.