A case study of Nanjing City was conducted using diversity theories and methods to evaluate correlation between soil and land use. Based on the remote sensing data of the city in 1986 and 2003, its land uses were classified, and constituent diversity index and spatial distribution diversity index in different grid scales of each soil and each land use pattern was worked out and a connection index was proposed to evaluate the relationship between soil and land use pattern. Furtheron, the connection indice between 3 typical types of soils and 9 land use patterns in the city were calculated at a 5 km-grid scale. Results show that during the years from 1986 to 2003, significant changes took place in land use composition with constituent diversity increased from 0.361 in 1986 to 0.444 in 2003. The spatial distribution discreteness of land use patterns was significantly higher in 2003, and so was the spatial distribution diversity of 5 major types of land use. The calculation of the connection indice between typical types of soils and various land use patterns indicate that quite a number of pairs of connection indice varied in a similar trend, so it could be inferred that compared to the situation in 1986, the correlations between soils and land use patterns in Nanjing City were more complicated and varied in 2003.