The determination of sulphate by using Barium -rnhematoxylin complex has been done for the quantitativerndetermination of sulphate in soil and ground water samples.rnThe formation of complex between Barium and hematoxylin hasrnbeen studied and the absorbance was measuredrnspectrophotometrically at Amax 556nm. The ratio of the ligandrnto metal was dormant by mole ratio method and was found to bern1:1. The reaction of a sample solution containing sulphaternwith the Barium-hematoxylin complex decreases the absorbancernof the complex and this decrease in absorbance is directlyrnproportion at to the amount of sulphate present and this wasrnthe basis of our method. The effect of experimental variablesrnhas been studied to establish the optimum conditions of therncomplex formation. It has been found that consistent andrnreproducible results are obtained by carrying out thernreaction at room temperature for 30 minutes. The colourrnsystem has been found to obey Beer's law in the concentrationrnrange 0.5 - 2.2 ~g ml-1 of sulphate. The detection limit andrnprecision of the method were found to be 0.014 ~g/ml andrn0.71% respec;: vely. Od thfJ basis of these studies, a simple and precise method has been developed for the determinationrnof sulphate. The method has been developed to the analysisrnof soil samples and ground water. The results obtained havernbeen compared with other methods. The proposed method hasrnbeen found to give results which are in good agreement withrnthose of routinely used methods.