A bipolar electrostatic chuck which has excellent dielectric breakdown strength and provides excellent attracting performance. The bipolar electrostatic chuck eliminates difficulty in dismounting a sample from a sample attracting plane as much as possible after application of a voltage to electrodes is finished. The bipolar electrostatic chuck is provided with a first electrode and a second electrode in an insulator and permits a surface of the insulator to be the sample attracting plane. The insulator has the first electrode, an interelectrode insulating layer and the second electrode in this order from the sample attracting plane in the depth direction. The second electrode has a region not overlapping with the first electrode in a normal line direction of the sample attracting plane.