Soil water retention curves play an essential role in determination of soil hydraulic characteristics.Among the developed mathematical models, van-Genuchten model historically has been the most widely adopted.Its four parameters are the key to application of this model.With the same set of experimental data (namely soil water suctions and corresponding soil water contents in cinnamon soil in northeast China), this paper introduced in detail the applicat ion of nonlinear curve fitting and nonlinear regression function, two useful functions of Matlab software, in obtaining values of the four parameters, based on which van Genuchten models were established respectively.By taking advantage of the powerful plotting function of matlab, visual comparison of them was easily made, showing differences between them were very small.Finally, using the methods of variance analysis and residual analysis, the calculated values by the models and measured values were analyzed.Results showed that in both nonlinear curve fitting and nonlinear regression good significant levels were achieved both to p < 0.000 1 and the sums of residual squares were both lower than 0.000 5.Especially the results from the nonlinear regression function were better than those from the nonlinear curve fitting.Therefore, it is practical and feasible to obtain values of the parameters of van Genuchten model for soil water retention curves using Matlab software, which may serve as a new promising approach to application of numerical methods for the soil scientists.