The analysis and evaluation of impurity contents in high purity nitrite is the basis of nitrite detection and the traceability of relevant reference materials. The high purity NaNO₂ was selected as an example. The contents of impurity elements were determined by ion chromatography. The qualitative analysis showed that the main anionic impurities were Cl^-, NO^-₃ and SO^2-₄. The contents of K, Ca and Mg were determined by inductively coupled plasma atomic emission spectrometry (ICP-AES). The contents of other cation impurity were determined by inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry (ICP-MS). The results showed that the cation impurities mainly included B and Sr except for K, Ca and Mg. The linear correlation coefficients were all greater than 0.9990 for the tested impurities within the linear range. The limit of detection for Cl^-, NO^-₃, SO^2-₄, K, Mg, Ca, B and Sr was 0.001%, 0.003%, 0.003%, 0.004%, 0.0009%, 0.00003%, 0.000015% and 0.0000074%, respectively. The contents of Cl^-, NO^-₃, SO^2-₄, K, Ca, Mg, B and Sr in high purity NaNO₂ were determined according to the experimental method. The relative standard deviations (RSD, n=10) of determination results were between 1.8% and 3.5%. The spiked recoveries were between 96% and 104%. The proposed method was applied to the determination of impurities in high purity NaNO₂. The measured contents (mass fraction, similarly hereinafter) of Cl^-, SO^2-₄, NO^-₃, K, Mg, Ca, B and Sr were 0.0054%, 0.037%, 0.033%, 0.02%, 0.0063%, 0.0035%, 0.00226% and 0.000268%, respectively. The proposed method could provide technical support for the determination and development of standard materials for nitrites. The developed reference materials could guarantee the traceability of nitrite.