Objective To evaluate the feasibility of DNA barcoding in identifying the rodent species based on the common rodents in the natural focus of plague in Hebei province, China. Methods The rodent liver specimens were collected in the natural focus of plague in Hebei in 2012; the whole rodents were conserved, and then the stuffed specimens were made; genomic DNA was extracted from the rodent liver. The mitochondrial COⅠ gene was amplified by consensus primer PCR and then sequenced. BLAST comparison was made between the sequencing results and the DNA bar codes of other rodent species in GenBank, and molecular evolutionary tree was constructed. Results In this research, specific COⅠ gene bands were obtained by PCR amplification in all 87 samples. Among all samples, 85 had the molecular evolutionary tree in accordance with the results of morphological identification, and 2 had different results, but the field identification was found to be incorrect by identifying the skulls and morphological specimens repeatedly. Conclusion DNA barcoding technique can be used to effectively identify the rodent species. At the same time, it can also be used for discussing the phylogenetic relationship of rodent genus and species classification.