We investigate the characteristics of the stress field associated with the 1995 Hyogo-ken Nanbu (Kobe) earthquake. We use for the study a tomographic model of the fault slip inferred from the numerous near-field recordings, and we calculate the space and time evolution of shear stress on the fault during the earthquake. We show that the spatial distribution of stress drop is very heterogeneous. The apparent strength of the fault at the onset of the earthquake is low (of the order of 1 MPa or less), which indicates that the pre-earthquake tectonic shear stress was close to the static friction over most of the fault. At many locations the stress drop rotates significantly during sliding. As was originally proposed by Spudich <1992>, we use the requirement of colinearity between the directions of maximum shear stress and instantaneous slip to determine the initial stress on the fault at the onset of the earthquake. The pre-earthquake tectonic stress varies greatly over the fault and ranges from about 1 to 10 MPa. Average values of the initial and final shear stresses over the fault are 3.3 and 1.6 MPa, respectively, indicating that about half of the pre-earthquake tectonic stress was released during the earthquake. There is a relatively strong correlation between the initial and final stress distributions, which suggests that intrinsic fault properties, not modified by the earthquake, control the spatial distribution of tectonic stress over the fault. We show that on average over the fault the dynamic friction coefficient is equal to about 40% of the static friction coefficient. Diagrams depicting the evolution of shear stress as a function of slip are consistent with slip-weakening behavior, but their interpretation is questionable because of the poor resolution of the data at high frequency and because of the constraints imposed on the model to perform the inversion. ¿ 1998 American Geophysical Union