3-Amino-9-ethylcarbazole (AEC) was employed for monosaccharide derivatization. The derivatives can be analyzed by high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) with an ultraviolet detection (wavelength: 254 nm). Monosaccharides were quantitatively derivatized with 3-amino-9-ethylcarbazole (AEC) at 70 for 60 min. The ℃ method was linear for all samples over the concentration range tested (r>0.999), the precision was found to be satisfactory (R.S.D.<3%), and the recovery ratios were >98.62%. The stability analysis showed R.S.D. was between 1.81%-3.16%. Detection limits for the samples (D-glucose, L-xylose, D-mannose, L-arabinose, and L-rhamnose) ranged from 0.06 to 1.97 ng/mL (S/N=3). Under the optimized derivatization and HPLC conditions, five monosaccharides were well separated using a narrow bore C18 column (250 mm×4.6 mm) with 0.1 mol/L ammonium acetate containing 25% acetonitrile at a flow rate of 0.5 mL/min. As an application, the method has been successfully applied to the determination of monosaccharide compositions of three polysaccharides SPPA-1, SPPB-1 and SPPC-1 of Spirulina platensis. This method also has potential application to oligosaccharide or glycan analyses.