Abstract: Determination of heavy metal (Cd,Hg,As,Pb,Cr)contamination of vegetable soils in south,north and central Jiangsu Province (SJ,NJ,CJ for short) shows all heavy metals remained below the criteria and on the whole were good in quality, except Cd, which was slightly higher than its background value in the 1980s. But sharp differences existed between sampling points. Heavy metal pollution was more serious in some areas in SJ and some sampling sites were much higher than the national environment standard for hazard-free vegetable fields (GB/T 18407.1-2001) in Cd,Hg and As,suggesting that these areas are no longer fit for production of hazard-free vegetable.With GB/T 18407.1-2001 as basis for evaluation and by using the Nemerow index method,the mean integrated heavy metal pollution index of the soils of the province was 0.54,in Safety Grade 1,and of the soils in NJ,CJ and SJ was (0.30),0.29 and 1.20,respectively,suggesting that the soils in SJ was in Safety Grade 3,slightly polluted,and the soils in NJ and CJ in Safety Grade 1,safe for cultivation.Obviously,the soils in CJ and NJ were better than in SJ in soil quality.About 15% of the vegetable soils were polluted with heavy metals and mainly distributed in SJ.Cd and Hg were the major pollution contributors.