The Study of the relationship between vegetation and environment have become important areas of vegetation ecology, different environmental factors of earth's surface leading to the different distribution of plants and vegetation. Ili River Valley is a "U" shaped valley, which was known as one of Xinjiang's most beautiful places. In this closed or semi-closed valley, there is kind of special "cold lake effect":In winter, as cold air accumulating in the bottom, the air in the valley forms a special "inversion layer" zone at altitude of 800—2000 m. In this special mountainous valley environment, the study of the vertical distribution patterns is of special significance. This study is set out to investigate the vertical distribution of the soil chemical properties, and to find out the the relationship between vegetation and the soils, which should provide important information for future vegetation restoration and reconstruction. Patterns of plant diversity and soil factors along the altitudinal gradient on northern slope of Ili River Valley were examined. Plant and environment characteristics were surveyed from the altitude of 1000 to 2200 m. There were a total of 155 vascular plants, 133 herbages, 18 shrubs, and 7 tree species in 44 sampled plots. The plant richness of vegetation types generally showed a special pattern along altitude, with a bimodal change of plant species number at 100m intervals of altitude. The two belts of higher plant richness were in transient zones between vegetation types, the first was in the transient zones from lower-mountain desert to forest, and the second in the transient zone from dry grass to coniferous forest. Soil nutrients and salt also showed a similar distribution pattern. Matching the change of richness of plant species to environmental factors along altitude and correlating these by PCA and relation analysis revealed that the environmental factors controlling species richness and its pattern were the combined effects of soil salt and nutrients. Water was more important at low altitude, and temperature was more important at high altitude. The effect of the inversion layer seems made the coniferous forest at high altitude had high plant species diversity. Species richness and soil total dissolved salt had a significant negative correlation (r =- 0.343), and soil total salt also had a significant negative correlation with species richness (r =- 0.341). Simpson index and soil pH showed a significant negative correlation (r =- 0.465). Shannon-Wiener index and soil electrical conductivity showed a significant negative correlation (r =- 0.367). Pielou evenness index and soil electrical conductivity showed a very significant negative correlation (r =- 0.477). In a word, there was a strong negative correlation between plant diversity index and the index of soil salinity/alkalinity, which confirms the negative effect of soil salinity/alkalinity on plant or vegetation. This study of altitudinal pattern in Ili River valley provides an important scientific basis for protection and utilization of plant/vegetation resources in this region, should enrich the theory of vegetation-environment relationships, and is also helpful in the future practice of the restoration, reconstruction of the degraded vegetation cover.