To establish a method for the determination of inorganic elements in Carthami Flos by microwave digestion-inductive coupled plasma mass spectrometry(ICP-MS), the microwave digestion technology was used to pretreat Carthami Flos samples, nine inorganic elements were determined by ICP-MS simultaneously, and the contents were analyzed by the statistical method with SPSS22.0 software. The result showed that there were rich inorganic elements in Carthami Flos, among which, Mg and Ca were the most abundant, Fe, Mn and Cu listed the second, and Cr, Co, Zn and Cd were less abundant. The linear correlation of each element was fine, the relative standard deviation (RSD) of repeatability and precision met the requirements, and the recoveries were in the range of 96.2% - 109.5%. Carthami Flos from 32 areas could be divided into two categories: Carthami Flos from Xinjiang and Qinghai were in the same category; Carthami Flos from other areas (Henan, Shandong, Yunnan and Gansu) belonged to the same category. The method is convenient and accurate, which is helpful for evaluating the quality and distinguishing the real producing area of Carthami Flos.