Abstract: The pattern recognition of growing area and stalk position of 1129 domestic flue-cured tobacco samples in 2003 and 2004 were carried out by Mahalanobis distance-based discrimination dependent on their near infrared spectra(NIRs) and main chemical components,including total sugar,reducing sugar,nicotine,total nitrogen,potassium and chlorine.The results indicated that the accuracies of growing area recognition by NIRs and chemical components were 88% to 94.5% and 62% to 78%,respectively;and the accuracies of stalk position recognition for tobacco from different areas were 71% to 75% and 63% to 67%,respectively,and for tobacco from the same area were 82% to 87% and 80% to 93%,respectively;the accuracies of upper and lower leaves recognition were 92% to 98% and 89% to 98%,respectively.It was concluded that NIR was suitable to the recognition of growing area and stalk position,while the six main chemical components were only fit for the recognition of stalk position.