The dark clay soil developed on the weathering products of the basalt, distributed over hilly land and terraces along Fujian coast has been distinguished into the lateritic red earths blow it is suggested by the authors that this soil is obviously different from the lateritic red earth. As compared with the lateritic red earth, this soil are weaker in leaching-weathering processes and desilicification allitic processes, darker in colbr of the whole solum, more indistines in differentiation of the profile, higher in content of the clay within depth of 50 cm, with the clay minerals predominanted by montmorillonite, a larger CEC, the higher base saturation and pH value, more distinct shrinkage-swelling and more cracks in dry season. Moreover, there appear angular blocky structure and slickenside features on the ped faces. According the criteria of the keys to US Soil Taxonomy, this soil is named "Fine, Montmorillonitic, Hyperthermic. Typic Chromudert". It is suggested that vertisol should be regarded as an independent classification unit in China. The vertisul exist with the lateritic red earth in the form of catena, its location is lower than that of lateritic red earth. As a result, the bases and clay are often accumulated in vertisol due to their migration from the high lands around it, which offers favorite conditions for development of vertisol. So the development of the vertisol is iafluenced by topography.