It is important to understand the relationship between iron core configurations and leakage flux distributions to get a better design of synchronous machines. This paper presents a method for calculating the steady- and transient-state leakage flux distributions in salient-pole synchronous machines. The method provides information on leakage flux distributions that cannot be obtained by terminal quantities. The method analyzes the leakage inductances that properly represent the corresponding leakage fluxes. They are calculated using the gap flux distributions by finite elements with magnetic saturation. The calculated leakage inductances of a synchronous machine under various loads are also shown and the relationship between the inductances and magnetic saturation is discussed.