【Objective】Nitrification in soil is a highly sensitive process to pH. Responses of nitrification rates and the community structures of nitrifying microorganisms to different N sources in an alkaline purple soil were studied to elucidate the microbiological mechanisms for nitrification. 【Method】Three different N sources and the blank control were used in the 4-week incubation study. Net nitrification rate was calculated by the differences of nitrate concentrations at day 0 and 28. The amoAgene abundances for ammonia oxidizing bacteria (AOB) and ammonia oxidizing archaea (AOA) were measured by quantitative PCR before and after the incubation. The relative abundance of nitrite oxidizing bacteria (NOB) was analyzed by binning the sequences of the 16S rRNA gene and the amoAgene into operational taxonomic unit (OTUs) at 97% similarity level. The changes of community structures for AOA, AOB and NOB were studied by high-throughput sequencing method before and after the incubation.【Result】In the 4-week incubation study, compared with blank control (CK), soil nitrification rate was stimulated by application of all three kind of nitrogen sources: ((NH₄) ₂SO₄, NH₄Cl and CO(NH₂)₂). The net nitrification rate for blank control (CK) was 0.86 mg N kg^-1 d ^-1. The highest net nitrification rate was observed for CO(NH₂)₂treatment (N 3.88 mg kg^-1 d ^-1), which was more than 4-times higher than CK. The addition of NH₄Cl and (NH₄) ₂SO₄, showed similar stimulation on nitrification to CO(NH₂)₂application. The net nitrification for NH₄Cl and (NH₄) ₂SO₄were N 3.34 and 3.88 mg kg^-1 d^-1, respectively. But, NH₄Cl also reduced the accumulation of nitrate and inhibited the reduction of ammonium when compared with (NH₄) ₂SO₄, and CO(NH₂)₂. Along with the accumulation of nitrate, the copies of amoA gene in ammonia oxidizing bacteria (AOB) increased significantly during the first two weeks of incubation (p<0.05). The copy numbers of bacterial amoA genes increased from 0.88×107 g^-1soil and 0.85×107 g^-1 soil at day-0 to 3.38×107 g^-1 soil and 3.55×107 g^-1 soil at the day 14 of the incubation, then decreased to 1.46×107 g^-1soil and 1.69×107 g^-1 soil at the day-28, for (NH₄) ₂SO₄, and CO(NH₂)₂ treatments respectively. The copy numbers of bacterialamoAgenes were significantly lower in NH₄Cl treatment than (NH₄) ₂SO₄, and CO(NH₂)₂addition at the day 14 (p<0.05). On the other hand, the copies of amoAfor AOA did not change significantly during incubation (p>0.05). Results indicated that nitrification in alkaline purple soil was mainly driven by AOB, but not AOA. Pyrosequencing of the 16S rRNA genes was performed at the whole microbial community level for different treatments and control before and after incubation. Approximately more than 30 000 high-quality 16S rRNA reads were obtained, and targeted reads from putative AOA, AOB and NOB sequences were selected for subsequent analysis. The high-throughput sequencing results further showed that the dominant nitrifying microorganisms were mainly related to Nitrospira, Nitrososmonas and Nitrosospira in the alkaline purple soil. The dominant AOB were classified into Nitrosospira Cluster 3, and the dominant AOA were affiliated with Group 1.1b. Furthermore, the relative abundance of NOB was much higher than that of AOB and AOA, which may imply the presence of Comammox in the studied alkaline purple soil.【Conclusion】Results showed that the nitrification in alkaline purple soil was stimulated by the addition of (NH₄) ₂SO₄, NH₄Cl and CO(NH₂)₂. But NH₄Cl also showed a inhibition effect on nitrification when compared with NH₄)₂SO₄, and CO(NH₂)₂ application. The nitrification process in alkaline purple soil was mainly driven by AOB, but not AOA. The evidences from the high-throughput sequencing results further indicated that the dominant population of ammonia oxidizing bacteria was classified into Nitrosospira Cluster 3 in the alkaline purple soil, and AOA was mainly the Group 1.1b. For NOB, Nitrospira was the dominated species.