To provide an exposure method which is capable of forming exposure patterns including only the stepping error of an exposure device in the exposure and allows high-accuracy alignment by each of the respective rows or columns of an element array even in the overlap exposure.

Reticle patterns 1 lined up with a multiplicity of plural element patterns 3 in a longitudinal direction and are lined up with one or a small pieces of these patterns in a short side direction are arranged on an original plate for projection and are stepping exposed on a photosensitive substrate plural times at intervals at which the reticle patterns 1 are not overlapped on each other toward the short side direction, by which the exposure patterns 4 comprising plural exposure shorts are formed. The coordinate values of the ≥2 exposure shots of the first exposure patterns formed by such exposure method are measured and the array error parameter are calculated. The array coordinate values of all the exposure shots within the first exposure patterns are determined and the second reticle patterns are exposed in superposition onto the first layer exposure patterns described above.