Soil analysis is the tool for understanding the soil. However, the conventional chemical analysis methods have been difficult to meet the requirements of mass information deprived from modern soil science. Laser-induced breakdown spectroscopy (LIBS) is one of the novel tools which reflects the elements atomic peaks in the soil with the advantages of less pre-processing, rapid, in situ, real-time and multielement monitoring. Moreover, each spectrum was recognized as a fingerprint of soil sample due to its unique characteristic. The current study aimed to provide a critical review of LIBS in soil analytical studies. Firstly, the principle of LIBS, the main factors in spectral recording and the chemometrics methods for spectra processing were introduced; then the applications in qualitative and quantitative soil analysis during the last decade were elaborated. Some of the soil analysis recorded with LIBS include soil identification, prediction of soil nutrients; soil heavy elements detection, and soil elements distribution studies at nano- and mesoscale. Lastly, the main challenges of the LIBS techniques in soil analysis were discussed and we highlighted the prospects and application of LIBS in future research.