Two racemic tridentate ligands, N-[(imidazol-4-yl)methylidene]-dl-alanine (H 2 L dl-ala ) and N-[(imidazol-4-yl)methylidene]-dl-phenylalanine (H 2 L dl-phe ), were synthesized by the 1:1 condensation reaction of 4-formylimidazole and either of dl-alanine and dl-phenylalanine, respectively. The Eu III complexes ‘fac’-[Eu III (HL dl-ala ) 3 ]·8H 2 O (1) and ‘mer’-[Eu III (HL dl-phe ) 3 ]·7.75H 2 O (2) were synthesized by mixing the ligand and Eu III (acetate) 3 n-hydrate with 3:1M ratio in methanol and the crystal structures were determined. Compounds 1 and 2 with three tridentate ligands have ‘facial’ and ‘meridional’ geometries, respectively, while they have a tricapped trigonal prismatic (TTP) and a capped square antiprismatic (CSAP) coordination geometry, respectively. In the crystal lattice, 1 consists of enantiomers ‘fac’-[Eu III (HL d-ala ) 3 ] and ‘fac’-[Eu III (HL l-ala ) 3 ], while 2 consists of ‘mer’-[Eu III (HL d-phe ) 2 (HL l-phe )] and ‘mer’-[Eu III (HL d-phe )(HL l-phe ) 2 ]. Compounds 1 and 2 displayed sharp emission bands based on the f−f transitions by excitation and showed a different emission pattern due to their ‘fac’- and ‘mer’-coordination geometries. The luminescence quantum yields and life times of 1 and 2 were estimated to be (Φ=0.25 and 1.40ms) and (Φ=0.30 and 1.23ms), respectively.