A backlight device, which uses solid-state light emitting elements capable of emitting lights of three colors, consisting of red, green and blue, can exhibit an enhanced light utilizing efficiency, and can generate light of high uniformity in brightness and chromaticity in a display device which can obtain a display image of high brightness with a rapid response speed. The backlight device includes a reflector which has a light reflection surface, a plurality of light transmitting cylindrical light guide bodies which are mounted on the light reflection surface of the reflector in a uniformly distributed manner, and light emitting diodes capable of emitting lights of at least three colors which are mounted inside each light guide body. By performing color mixing every light guide block, it is possible to obtain a white light of high chromaticity which has a high luminous flux distribution.