Abstract: A method for simultaneously determining 14 rare earth elements (REEs), including Sc, Y, La, Ce, Pr, Nd, Sm, Eu, Gd, Tb, Dy, Ho, Yb and Lu, in tobacco leaves by microwave digestion-inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry was developed, and the leaf samples of flue-cured tobacco collected from Yuxi (C3F, 2011), Honghe (C3F, 2012), Zhaotong, Tongren and Xuchang (X2F, 2011) were determined by the developed method. The results showed that: 1) The linear correlation coefficients of the method for the 14 REEs ranged from 0.9992 to 0.9998, the recoveries for the spiked standards ranged from 94.5% to 117.7% with the relative standard deviations of 0.05%-2.03%, and the detection limits and quantitation limits of the method were in the range of 0.005-0.050 and 0.017-0.167 μ g/L, respectively. 2) The determined values of national standard reference material, bush twigs and leaves, GBW07602(GSV-1), by the developed method agreed with the certified reference values. 3) The major REEs in all samples were Sc, Y, La, Ce and Nd, and the total content of the 14 REEs decreased with the increase of atomic number. The total amount of the light REEs (ΣLREEs) were higher than that of the heavy REEs (ΣHREEs) in the samples from Yuxi, Zhaotong and Honghe, while lower than that of the heavy REEs (ΣHREEs) in the samples from Tongren and Xuchang. Comparing with the other four areas, the total REEs content in the samples from Xuchang was significantly lower. This method is suitable for the determination of the 14 REEs in tobacco leaves.