Nine loessial soils sampled from North China plain, one, neutral soil and one, acid soil sampled from central and southern China respectively were used for phosphorus sorption and desorption study in this paper.A single Langmuir equation is the best one to describe the sorption data as judged by their very significant correlation coefficients (P<0.01).However,both Freundlich and Temkin equation are not fit very well to the sorption data in this study.Compared with the acid soil, the lbessial soils are the soil with relative low capablity of P sorption. The P sorption maxima of loessial soils as estimated by the single Langmuir equation range from 80 to 680μg P/g soil. While that of the acid soil is ahout 900 μg P/g soil Results have showed that the P sorption maxmna but not the P maximum buffering capacity (MBC=dq/dl) is a good pac-ameter to assess P sorption and supply status of loessial soils.Relationship between soil properties and P sorption maximu have been examed by simple linear regression analysis. Highly significant (P<0.01) positive corefations were found with the content of Fe₂O₃, clay, and CaCO₃ im loessial soil. CEC was also significantly (P<0.05) correlated with the P sorption maxima. When all the soils tested are considered, only the contents of Fe₂O₃ and clay are the major factors responsible for P sorption.P desorption data indicated that the loessiaL soils could be regarded as the soil with high capablity of P desorption. As campared with the neutral and acid soils tested, loessial soils arc more sensitive to P fertilizer.