To increase the scanning speed of a scanning aligner to the highest speed without impairing the accuracy of synchronization and to enhance the throughput of the scanning aligner.

A scanning aligner has a projection optical system 4 for projecting a pattern formed within a transfer region on a reticle 3, which is a negative, on a region to be exposed on a wafer 5 which is a material to be transferred, an illuminating optical system 2 for illuminating the reticle 3 with light fed from a light source 2, stages 6 and 7, which respectively have measuring systems 10 and 12 and the like, which are used as measuring means for measuring the patterns of the reticle 3 and the wafer 5, and are used for scanning the reticle 3 and the wafer 5 at a prescribed scanning speed while controlling the position of each of the reticle 3 and the wafer 5 to the system 4, and control systems 11 and 13 and the scanning speed is made variable according to the amount of drive to drive the stages 6 and 7 for controlling the position of each of the reticle 3 and the wafer 5.