Residual stresses caused by various thermal histories in a structural member occasionally affect the strength of the structure. Therefore, accurate estimation of the residual stresses is practically very important. In the present paper, inverse analysis based on the boundary element method (BEM) was formulated and applied to identifying residual stresses in an axisymmetric elastic body. Cylindrical pipes with various dimensions were taken for example, and location of the residual stress source, which was approximately replaced by appropriate body forces, was numerically searched. It was found that the evaluation parameter R1, the sum of axial directional body forces, is one of most useful indices for the location search of acting body force in the inverse analysis.