This spectral characteristic measuring apparatus measures two-dimensional spectral characteristics of a sample, and the apparatus includes a collimator lens, band-pass filters, lenses and an area sensor, which are arranged in order on an optical axis L. The collimator lens transforms light outputted from the sample into a pencil of parallel light. The band-pass filters have mutually-different passbands. The lenses have an identical focal distance and are arranged in correspondence with the band-pass filters. The area sensor is arranged at the focal points of the lenses and constructed of a number of imaging devices such as CCDs arranged two-dimensionally. As described above, the images spectrally separated by the band-pass filters are formed in mutually-different positions on the area sensor. Therefore, the two-dimensional spectral characteristics of the sample can be simultaneously measured with the simple construction.