Abstract: Research on soil environmental criteria is clearly demanded by laws and regulations in China. It is of great significance to provide scientific basis for soil environmental standards. Since the 1970s, during the study of soil environmental capacity and development of soil environmental quality standards, a lot of scientific researches have been carried out in the field of soil environmental criteria, and substantial results have been achieved. However, due to the inherent complexity of soil as an environmental media and its associated environmental risks, currently there are still different opinions on the concept, connotation, research content and research methods of soil environmental criteria among researchers and administrators in China. In the context that soil environmental management in China is progressing into the era of risk based management, soil environmental criteria research needs to be based on risk assessment methods, and incorporate the established methods in China's soil environmental science studies. This study explores the concept and connotation of soil environmental criteria, and recommends to define the soil environmental criteria as the content of soil contaminants that do not cause adverse effects on specific receptors, including the complete relationship between soil contaminant content (dose) and receptors' adverse effects under specific exposure conditions. At present, the focus of soil environmental criteria research in China is to establish a system of standardized research methods and to consolidate the basis of localized data.