Nonwoven fabric and method of manufacturing same

This invention provides a bulky nonwoven fabric comprising a base cloth layer (1) made of thermoplastic fiber-like filaments and having densely distributed holes (1a) and a large number of cylindrical projections (2), each projection (2) standing from the peripheral edge of one of the holes (1a) and made of thermoplastic fiber-like filaments the height (h) of the projection (2) being at least twice the thickness (t) of the base cloth layer (1). The nonwoven fabric can be made by blowing molten filaments out of a melt-blow die onto a porous plate provided with a large number of air passage holes under a condition where ambient air pressure on the side of the plate facing the die is kept higher than the air pressure on the other side of the plate so that some of the filaments project through the air passage holes to form so many cylindrical projections due to the difference of pressure, the aggregate of filaments being then taken away from the porous plate.