The culture method of undisturbed soil cores - acetylene inhibitor was used in order to study effects of fertilization on N₂O emission fluxes and denitrification rates during summer corn growing season in purple soil in the hilly area of the central Sichuan Basin. Results show that during the season, N loss through N₂O emission and denitrification was significantly higher in purple soil with fertilization than without fertilization. Significant differences were observed between different fertilization treatments. The N₂O emission flux in Treatment OM (pig manure), OMNPK (pig manure with NPK fertilizer), N (pure N fertilizer), NPK (fertilizer NPK), and RSDNPK (crop residues returned with NPK fertilizer) was 3.01, 2.86, 2.51, 2.19 and 1.88 kg hm^-2, respectively, accounting for 1.63%, 1.53%, 1.30%, 1.09% and 0.88%, respectively, of the total fertilizer nitrogen applied to the crop. The N loss through denitrification in those treatments were 6.74, 6.11, 5.23, 4.69 and 4.12 kg hm^-2, respectively, accounting for 3.97%, 3.55%, 2.97%, 2.61% and 2.23%, respectively of the fertilizer N applied during the season. The N loss through N₂O emission and denitrification in Treatment CK (no fertilization) was 0.56 and 0.78 kg hm^-2, respectively, only. Fertilization was obviously the main driving force of peak emergence of soil N₂O emission and denitrification in the early growth stage of corn (2 weeks) in purple soil. Inorganic N (ammonium and nitrate) content was the limiting factor of soil N₂O emission, nitrification and denitrification. Soil moisture driven by rainfall was an important influencing factor. The ratio of N losses through N₂O emission and denitrification ranged from 0.45 to 0.72. Soil N loss was significantly higher through denitrification than through N₂O emissions, which implies that the soil denitrification was the main pathway of fertilizer N loss during the maize growing season in the hilly area of purple soils.