An extensible nonwoven fabric, and method for its manufacture, on which the source, medicinal component, pattern and/or other pieces of information are recognizable at the beginning of and during fabric use. It is made mainly of highly crimped fibers, with a compressed region where no fibers are melted and bonded together, with a tensile strength of 25 N/5-cm-width or more in both the machine direction and the cross direction. It may be manufactured by causing a water jet having a pressure of 5 MPa or more to act onto a web made mainly of a latent crimpable fiber, forming an entangled fiber web, causing heat to act on it, crimping the fiber converting it to a highly crimped fiber while contracting the web's area by 30% or more forming a contracted fiber web, and embossing it such that the fibers are not melted and bonded together.