A new white striped leaf mutant wsl1 was discovered from Nipponbare mutated by ethyl methanesulfonate. The mutant showed white striped leaves at the seedling stage and the leaves gradually turned green after the tillering stage. The chlorophyll content of wsl1 was significantly lower than that of wild-type during the fourth leaf stage, tillering stage and booting stage. The numbers of chloroplast, grana and grana lamella were reduced and the thylakoids were degenerated in wsl1 compared with wild type. Genetic analysis showed that the wsl1 was controlled by a single recessive gene. Molecular mapping of the wsl1 was performed using an F2 population derived from wsl1/Nanjing 11. The wsl1 was finally mapped on the telomere region of chromosome 9 and positioned between simple sequence repeat markers RM23742 and RM23759 which are separated by approximately 486.5 kb. The results may facilitate map-based cloning of wsl1 and understanding of the molecular mechanism of the regulation of leaf-color by WSL1 in rice. A new White striped leaf mutant wsl1 was discovered from Nipponbare mutated by ethyl methanesulfonate. The mutant showed white striped leaves at the seedling stage and the leaves gradually turned green after the tillering stage. The chlorophyll content of wsl1 was significantly lower than that of wild- type during the fourth leaf stage, tillering stage and booting stage. The numbers of chloroplast, grana and grana lamella were reduced and the thylakoids were degenerated in wsl1 compared with wild type. Genetic analysis showed that the wsl1 was controlled by a single recessive gene. Molecular mapping of the wsl1 was performed using an F2 population derived from wsl1 / Nanjing 11. The wsl1 was finally mapped on the telomere region of chromosome 9 and positioned between simple sequence repeats RM23742 and RM23759 which are separated by approximately 486.5 kb. The results may facilitate map-based cloning of wsl1 and understanding of the molecular mechanism of the regulation of leaf-col or by WSL1 in rice.