PURPOSE: To provide a high pressure metallic vapor electric discharge lamp which is capable of dimming light with little change in color characteristic over a wide input range and has a good startup characteristic.

CONSTITUTION: A metal halide, such as NaI and ScI3, and a rare gas selected from xenon gas, krypton gas and argon gas are sealed in a light-emitting tube H bulb 1 having at least a pair of electrodes 2, 2, while mercury is not sealed therein.