Rare earth elements (REE) of atmospheric dust were used in many investigations to trace the potential sources of environmental materials. In this study, we collected atmospheric dry deposition samples monthly from May of 2009 to January of 2011 over one and half year in a typical karst urban area of Guiyang city, southwest China, and measured the contents of REE to trace the sources. The total REE contents ( n-ary sumation REE) of the dusts ranged from 9.48 to 181 mg kg(-1), with an average of 93.9 mg kg(-1). The n-ary sumation REE content of atmospheric dusts is similar to the contents of local soils. All the dust samples showed slighter Ce and Eu anomalies, and the dusts deposited in dry season showed slightly positive Ce anomaly. PAAS (post-Archean Australian shale) normalized REE patterns showed that there was significant difference between the dusts of dry seasons and wet seasons. The values of PAAS-normalized La-N/Yb-N,Yb- La-N/Sm-N and Gd-N/Yb-N of atmospheric dusts were closer to those of local soils collected in dry seasons, whereas the REE characteristics and patterns of dusts were similar to anthropogenic urban air particulates in wet seasons, demonstrating that dusts were mainly originated from anthropogenic inputs.