Certain embodiments provide a white LED for a backlight of a liquid crystal display device, which comprises an ultraviolet (or violet) light emitting element and a phosphor layer that contains a green phosphor selected from trivalent cerium- and terbium-activated rare earth borate phosphors, a blue phosphor selected from divalent europium-activated halophosphate phosphors and divalent europium-activated aluminate phosphors, and a red phosphor selected from europium-activated lanthanum oxysulfide phosphors and europium-activated yttrium oxysulfide phosphors as the contained amounts of the respective phosphors relative to the total amount of the phosphors as follows: 35-50% by weight of the green phosphor content; 50-70% by weight of the blue phosphor content; and 1-10% by weight of the red phosphor content.