Identifying the origins of nephrite from three different places has been studied, using laser-induced breakdown spectroscopy (LIBS) coupled with partial least squares discriminant analysis (PLS-DA) approach. 146 nephrite specimens from Xinjiang (Hotan, Yutian, Qiemo), Qinghai (Golmud) and Russia (Baikal) were selected as research subjects. 111 of the specimens were chosen as calibration samples to build the PLS-DA model, and the rest 35 specimens were used as prediction samples to test the PLS-DA model. In this study, LIBS was used to test and analyze the element composition of nephrite specimens. Na, K, Al, Li, Be, Mn, Sr, Zr, Ba, Y and Ce were chosen as analysis object elements, and their spectral lines at 589.995, 766.490, 396.152, 670.793, 313.042, 257.610, 407.771, 389.138, 455.403, 437.493, 401.239 nm were selected as analysis spectral lines. The LIBS spectrum of Si at 288.158 nm was chosen as internal spectral line. Ratio between the intensity of analysis spectral lines Rx and the intensity of analysis internal spectral line was calculated. The matrix of independent variables composed by Rx was applied to calibrate and test the PLS-DA mode. This study shows that for discrimination mode built by PLS-DA approach coupled with LIBS, the correlations between category variables of calibration or prediction and the measured category variables are all remarkable with a correlation coefficient over 0.9, and low root mean squared error of cross calibration and root mean square error of prediction (less than 0.29). The discrimination accuracy for the nephrite from three different origins is 92% by PLS-DA model based on the validation set of samples. The results indicate that using LIBS coupled with PLS-DA approach can achieve a well recognition of the origins of nephrite specimens.