Disclosed herein is a semiconductor light emitting device including: a light emitting part formed of a multilayer structure arising from sequential stacking of a first compound semiconductor layer, an active layer, and a second compound semiconductor layer; a current block layer; and a burying layer, wherein a planar shape of the active layer is a strip shape in which a width of a center part is smaller than a width of both end parts, the current block layer is composed of third and fourth compound semiconductor layers, the burying layer is formed of a multilayer structure arising from sequential stacking of a first burying layer and a second burying layer, and an impurity for causing the second burying layer is such that a substitution site of the impurity in the second burying layer does not compete with a substitution site of an impurity in the third compound semiconductor layer.