A refrigerator is provided which can individually cool a freezing chamber and a refrigerating chamber by dividing a heat exchange region of an evaporator into a freezing chamber side region and a refrigerating chamber side region, forming individual circulation passages for supplying cool air from each region to the freezing chamber and the refrigerating chamber, and forming a freezing chamber fan and a refrigerating chamber fan on each circulation passage. Further, a method for controlling operation of the same is provided which can efficiently perform a cooling operation and reduce power consumption by effectively controlling the operations of each component.