Abstract: The soil background value reflects the background value of element index content under the influence of natural environment and human activities in a certain area. Based on 2 638 soil samples obtained from the 1∶250 000 geochemical survey of land quality in Guyuan of Ningxia, the authors in this paper obtained geochemical background values and characteristic parameters of 53 element indexes, by using the methods of iterative elimination and statistical analysis. Compared with the national soil abundance, the contents of Cd and S are significantly higher than the national topsoil abundance value, and they are within the safety limit. The difference of element index content under geomorphic types is not only affected by external natural conditions such as soil forming parent material and soil forming environment, but also reflects the disturbance of human activities to the soil environment, which provides reliable data for the sustainable development and rational utilization of agriculture.