1. An inspection apparatus comprising: a wafer stage for carrying a wafer; an illumination module which irradiates an inspection beam on the wafer carried on said wafer stage; a detection module which detects scattering rays or reflection rays from the wafer on said wafer stage and outputs an image signal; a coordinates control module which stores information about the arrangement of individual inspection areas on said wafer; and an imperfect area recognition module which recognizes, on the basis of the inspection area arrangement information stored in said coordinates control module, an imperfect inspection area interfering with a wafer edge.