Fifteen paddy soil samples were collected from the major rice producing regions of the country and incubated un der anaerobic and aerobic conditions to invest igate effects of soil properties on CH₄ production.CH₄ production potentials of the 15 paddy soils differed greatly,with the total CH₄ outputs over the whole incubation period(132 days)varying in the range of 1.8~1180μgg^-1(anaerobic incubation)and of 0.41~136μgg^-1(aerobic incubation).Significant positive correlation was observed of CH₄ production with contents of soil organic carbon and total nitrogen.However,CH₄ production was not significantly affected by the other soil properties,such as particle sizes,soil pH,soil cation exchange capacity and active Fe and Mn contents.Thus soil organic matter content is the most important soil property affecting CH₄ production.Comparison with the results of the other similar experiments showed that the larger the spatial scale the soil samples represented,the less soil properties correlated with CH₄ production,and the less significant the correction of an individual soil property with CH₄ production.