In order to explore the effects of nitrogen application on soil nutrients and above -ground productivity of degraded alpine meadow,this study took the alpine meadow in the eastern section of Qilian Mountains as the re- search object,and applied 0,10,20,30,40 g/m2 urea to measure above-ground productivity and soil nutrient content in different soil layers under different nitrogen application levels. The results showed that the aboveground productiv- ity increased with the increase of nitrogen application rate,but too low or too high nitrogen application rate did not sig- nificantly increase aboveground productivity. With the increase of nitrogen application rate,the contents of soil total nitrogen and organic matter decreased;however the contents of ammonium nitrogen,nitrate nitrogen and available phosphorus increased significantly. There was no significant correlation between N application rate and soil total P,to- tal K and available K. In this area,the optimal amount of nitrogen application was 30 g/m2 .