Abstract: Zanthoxylum bungeanum samples from 9 origins in 3 provinces were screened, naturally dried, and then passed through a 0.425 mm sieve. An aliquot (1.0 g) was taken and placed into a 20 mL-headspace bottle. After sealing with a crimper, the sample was balanced for 30 min at the temperature of 100 ℃ in the heating box and 110 ℃ in the quantitative ring. The obtained volatile components were introduced into the gas chromatograph, separated on the DB-17MS capillary column by programmed temperature, and detected by the mass spectrometer with electron impact ion source. Retention time and qualitative ion were used for qualitative analysis, the peak area normalization method was used for semi quantitative analysis, and the principal component analysis method was used to find differential substances that could distinguish different origins. It was shown that 120 volatile components were detected in samples from the 9 regions, including 56, 2, 10, 24, 7, 1, 12 and 8 kinds of olefins, aromatic hydrocarbons, alkanes, alcohols, aldehydes, phenols, ketones and esters, respectively. Twelve kinds of common components were found, among which relative content of limonene was relatively high (9.646%-48.985%). 2-Methyl-5-(1-methylethenyl)-2-cyclohexen-1-ol and terpinyl acetate could be used as differential substances to distinguish samples from different regions, and p-methyl-α-methylstyrene and caryophyllene could be used as auxiliary differential substances.