To provide a high-strength nonwoven fabric of high density and softness with soft touch feeling, and to provide a method for producing the same, and also to provide such a nonwoven fabric excellent in dispersibility and freeness in undergoing papermaking, high in energy consumption efficiency and productivity with low equipment cost and low in production cost, and to provide a method for producing the same.

The nonwoven fabric is produced by forming constituent fibers into sheet by wet papermaking process and three-dimensionally interlacing them by water jet. The nonwoven fabric thus produced comprises 50-99 mass% of extra-fine fibers and 50-1 mass% of crimped fibers where latently crimpable fibers develop crimps, wherein the diameters of the extra-fine fibers and the crimped fibers are ≤7 μm and larger than 7 μm respectively.