The microstructure and mechanical properties of high nitrogen steel (HNS) weld metals prepared under air-and water-cooling conditions are investigated, and the effect of the cooling rate on these properties is discussed. The results indicate that an increase in the cool-ing rate could significantly increase the nitrogen content in HNS weld metals, especially for weld metals with a nitrogen content of 0.85％. Moreover, increasing the cooling rate could result in an increase in the tensile strength of HNS weld metals, which is found to be strongly de-pendent on the nitrogen content of the HNS sample. For high nitrogen austenitic stainless steel welding wire with lower nitrogen content, in-creasing the cooling rate could significantly improve its tensile strength, but a higher cooling rate has no influence on weld metals with nitro-gen content less than 0.58％. The tensile strength of the joint reached 850 MPa.