The mixed soil samples were collected at the main tourist sites with different altitude such as Songyang College, Laomu Cave, Stone Ship and Tianye Temple along the mountain-climbing path of the Songshan scenic area, Henan province. At the same time, the control soil samples were collected at the sites 200 m away from the scenic sites, where the impacts of tourist activities on soils are very weak. Total chemical composition of soil clay, physicochemical properties, and the concentration of heavy metals (Cu,Zn,Pb,Ni,Cd and Cr) in soils were measured for the prepared soil samples, using the common methods offered by the Institute of Soil Science, CAS, Nanjing, and the standard methods of China. The results show that tourist activities have a substantial impact on the soils in the Songshan scenic area. Compared with the control soil samples, scenic soil samples have following characteristics: (1) Soil clay contents in the scenic samples are higher, soil textures are heavier, soils are relative solider and more dry, root densities in soil surface layer are smaller, soil colors are lighter than that of in the control samples. (2) Cation exchange capacities (CEC) in the scenic samples are smaller, base saturation percentages (BSP) and pH values are higher than that of in the control samples. (3)Soil organic matter (SOM) and available nutrients (K,N,P) in the scenic samples are less than that of in the control samples. (4) The concentrations of CaO in clay part of the scenic samples are much higher, the SiO2 and silica-sesquioxide ratios (Saf) are smaller than that of in the control samples. The “pseudo weathering eluviations” occur in the scenic samples, not in the control samples. (5) The concentrations of most heavy metals in the scenic samples are higher than that of the background values of the brown soils and the cinnamom soils in China, and that of in the control samples. Cu and Ni in the scenic samples were not polluted based on the first reference values for soil pollution specified in the GB15618-1995, but the others were polluted from medium to heavy degrees. The pollution order of the heavy metals in the scenic samples is Zn＞Pb＞Cd＞Cr, and the pollution order of the scenic spots studied is Songyang Collage＞Laomu Cave＞Tianye Temple＞Stone Ship.