The effects of substitution, lanthanide-shift reagents, solvent changes, and tautomerism were investigated on the 13C chemical shifts of pyrrole, pyrazole, imidazole, s-and u-triazole, and tetrazole. It was concluded that 1SC chemical shifts are of limited value to ascertain the positions of tautomeric equilibrium for rapidly interconverting azole tautomers.Several molecules in the five-membered N-heterocycle series have been investigated by means of their 13C nuclear magnetic resonance, but not in a systematic way: pyrrole as a neat liquid3 or in acetone;4 pyrazole in water,5 in acetone,4•6 and some of its N-substituted derivatives as neat liquids;6'7 imidazole in water,5•8 acetone,4 and ethanol;9 1,2,3-triazole in acetone;4 1,2,4-triazole in acetone4 or in dimethyl sulfoxide;10 and tetrazole in dimethyl sulfoxide.4 However, in none of these researches have the 13C nmr data been used to study tautomerism. Although a great deal of work has been done on the annular tautomerism of such azoles11 by various methods, often no definite conclusions can be reached. We will give attention here to the usefulness of 13C spectroscopy in the determination of tautomeric equilibrium constants compared with 1H or 14N spectroscopy.