Let Ω be a bounded domain in RN (N⩾2), φ a harmonic function in Ω¯. In this paper we study the existence of solutions to the following problem arising in the study of vortex pairs(Pλ){−Δu=λ(u−φ)+p−1,x∈Ω,u=0,x∈∂Ω. The set Ωp={x∈Ω,u(x)>φ} is called “vortex core”. Existence of solutions whose “vortex core” consists of one component and asymptotic behavior of “vortex core” were studied by many authors for large λ recently. Under the condition that φ has k strictly local minimum points on the boundary ∂Ω, we obtain in this paper that for λ large enough, (Pλ) has a solution with “vortex core” consisting of k components by a constructive way.