Abstract. Investigation on local atomic structure of ZnO:Mn nanorods, thin films and nanoscale core/shell structures ZnO nanorods/ZnO:Mn film (10% Mn concentration) has been performed. The structures are synthesized with high pressure pulsed-laser deposition (PLD) method. Synthesis and growth of the studied structures have been considered in detail for the determination of Mn embeddings and impurities in ZnO host lattice. Theoretical analysis of experimental data have been carried out using a self-consistent real space multiple scattering method (FEFF8.4 code) and a finite difference method (FDMNES2008 code). Local structure parameters have been refined using multidimensional interpolation approach on the basis of fitting XANES spectra (Fitit2.0 code). The samples synthesized under certain condition may contain both Mn embeddings and secondary phases. It is found that the most probable model of the Mn embeddings is the structure where Mn atoms substitute for Zn atoms but a part of Mn atoms is located in interstitial sites in ZnO host lattice.