Abstract: This work is devoted to a structural study of the finely dispersed nanosized gold species supported on nanosized mixed oxides prepared by the sol–gel method. An analysis of the XANES (Au-L3) spectra has revealed mainly Au3+ cations located on the oxide matrix surface in distorted octahedral coordination for the catalysts reduced at 150°C. For the catalysts reduced at 300°C, a highly distorted metallic gold species has been mainly found, within the method limitation. The synthesized catalysts have also been characterized by transmission electron microscopy (TEM), BET, X-ray diffraction (XRD) and XPS. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]