A nitride semiconductor laser device has an improved stability of the lateral mode under high output power and a longer lifetime, so that the device can be applied to write and read light sources for recording media with high capacity. The nitride semiconductor laser device includes an active layer, a p-side cladding layer, and a p-side contact layer laminated in turn. The device further includes a waveguide region of a stripe structure formed by etching from the p-side contact layer. The stripe width provided by etching is within the stripe range of 1 to 3 &mgr;m and the etching depth is below the thickness of the p-side cladding layer of 0.1 &mgr;m and above the active layer. Particularly, when a p-side optical waveguide layer includes a projection part of the stripe structure and a p-type nitride semiconductor layer on the projection part and the projection part of the p-side optical waveguide layer has a thickness of not more than 1 &mgr;m, an aspect ratio is improved in far field image. Moreover, the thickness of the p-side optical waveguide layer is greater than that of an n-side optical waveguide layer.