Objective Screening characteristic elements in wheat starch for geographical origin. Building foundation for developing mature and effective food traceability technology by analyzing the data of food safety risk monitoring. Methods The concentrations of 10 elements in 173 wheat flour samples from Hebei, Xinjiang and Jiangsu Provinces were determined by inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry. Principal component analysis(PCA), partial least squares discriminant analysis(PLS-DA)and orthogonal partial least-squares discriminant analysis(OPLS-DA)models were implemented for data analysis. Results The result of PCA model could be separated. The samples from Xinjiang were isolated from other provinces in PCA score scatter plot. The samples of the three provinces could achieve separation by each other in PLS-DA score scatter plot. The samples from Hebei and Xinjiang could be isolated in OPLS-DA score scatter plot as well as Jiangsu and Xinjiang. Conclusion Cu, Fe, and As were the characteristic elements for determining the geographical origin of wheat flour by multivariate data analysis such as PCA, PLS-DA and OPLS-DA.