Abstract: Starch and pectin in tobacco were hydrolyzed in dilute hydrochloric acid to give glucose and galacturonic acid,which were separated on a Waters Sugar PakⅠ cation exchange column (6.5×300 mm,as stationary phase).A solution of 0.05 g·L-1 Ca Na EDTA was used as mobile phase.Differential refractive index detector was used in the analysis.Detection limits of this method were 2.0 mg·L-1 for glucose and 1.0 mg·L-1 for galacturonic acid respectively.The proposed method has been applied to the analysis of 4 tobacco samples,giving RSDs in the range of 1.4% to 1.8%,and recoveries obtained by standard addition method were in the range of 96%-105%.