Abstract: A method for determining salicylic acid in tobacco was established with high performance liquid chromatography.Tobacco samples were extracted with trichloroacetic acid,then back extracted with chloroform,and detected by using methanol and phosphoric acid as a mobile phase.Ten flue-cured tobacco leaf samples were tested.The results showed that the recoveries of salicylic acid ranged from 88% to 90% with relative standard deviations of 3.3% to 5.4%.The contents of salicylic acid in the samples were in the range of 1.43 to 6.22 μg/g.