Abstract: To explore the spatial heterogeneity and the distribution pattern of soil nutrients in Wumeng mountainous region, Yunnan, the spatial variability and change rules were analyzed with classical statistics and geostatistics method for the content of soil pH value, organic matter (SOM), total nitrogen (TN), available phosphorus (AP), and rapidly available potassium (AK). The results indicated that the soil was generally acidic, and the SOM, TN, AP and AK were at medium or higher level in most areas. The variability of all soil nutrients were at moderate or higher intensity level. Spatial variation analysis showed that the exponential model was best-fitted for the 5 soil nutrients. The pH value and TN showed strong spatial autocorrelation, affected by structural and randomness factors, the spatial distribution of all these items was patchy, and the trend of stripe distribution was not obvious. There was a significantly negative correlation between the pH value and altitude, and other nutrients showed significantly positive correlation with altitude, but the correlations were different between north, central, and south Wumeng region. Elevation was an important structural factor which affected the pH value and the content of soil nutrients, but SOM, AP and AK were also disturbed by random factors.