Kelvin probe force microscope (KPFM), which is an application of the non-contact atomic force microscope, allows us to observe the images of the microscopic contact potential difference (CPD) between tip and sample and the surface topographic image, simultaneously. In this paper, we examine using KPFM the nanometer scale features of the CPD distribution and the topography of TaN thin films fabricated by various methods. The TaN film fabricated with the ion beam assisted deposition method shows substantial work function and topographic distributions in tens of nanometer scale. However, microscopic features that are responsible for the observed higher electron emission properties of TaN films fabricated by radio frequency magnetron sputtering are not found.