The ambient gas pressure has an important influence on the laser induced plasma characteristics. The effects of gas pressure on the characteristics of air plasma induced by nanosecond laser are studied by using the optical emission spectroscopy, and the relationship between the gas pressure and the spectral intensity, and between electron temperature and electron density of air plasma are discussed. The air gas pressure in chamber is continuously changed in a range from 10 to 100 kPa by using a mechanical pump and measured by using a barometer. The ns laser energy in experiment is fixed at 100 mJ in the whole experiment. The digital delay trigger (Stanford DG535/645) is used to trigger the laser and ICCD synchronously, and the delay and gate time of ICCD are set to be 0 and 5 μs, respectively. The experimental results show that air plasma emission spectrum consists of the line and continuous spectrum, and the spectral intensity of air plasma emission spectrum is dependent on gas pressure in a range from 10 to 100 kPa, and the evolution of atomic spectrum intensity with gas pressure is different from that of ion spectrum intensity. The air density in the region of laser breakdown increases with air pressure increasing, which leads the breakdown probability of air gas to increase, thus resulting in the air plasma spectral intensity increasing. Under the confinement action of the ambient air gas in the expanding region of air plasma, the collision probability and energy exchange probability among particles in the air plasma are both increased, and the trisomic recombination probability of ion-electron-atom is also increased. As a result, the atomic spectral intensity of O Ι 777.2 nm and N Ι 821.6 nm both increase with the air gas pressure increasing, and the spectral intensity is highest at 80 kPa, and then slowly decreases. But the spectral intensity of N II 500.5 nm reaches its maximum value at 40 kPa, and decreases as the pressure becomes greater than 40 kPa. The electron density of the air plasma increases with the air pressure increasing, and the growth rate becomes slow after 80 kPa. The electron temperature of the air plasma reaches a maximum value at 30 kPa. The plasma electron temperature gradually decreases as the pressure becomes greater than 30 kPa. The research results can provide an important experimental basis for studying the laser-induced air plasma characteristics at different altitudes, and also give important technical support for laser atmospheric transmission and atmospheric composition analysis in the future.