Acid rain is a global environmental problem and Chongqing is one of cities where acid rain occurred earliest in China. The acid deposition in the suburbs of Chongqing was extremely serious and exerted a significant threat to forest ecosystem and soil acidification. Pinus massoniana is a common afforestation species in southern China and one of the most dominant vegetation types in this region, but it is extremely sensitive to the hazard of acid deposition. Under the long-term influence of acid rain, Pinus massoniana has undergone significant disturbance. However, in recent years, acid rain has been greatly alleviated in southern China. Under this background, it is necessary to scientifically understand and accurately comprehend the changes and the responses of forest structure and soil properties in acid rain region, and will provide a scientific basis for the assessment of forest adaptability in the later stage of acid rain impact and forest sustainable management. However, previous studies have mainly focused on the short-term effect of acid deposition on structure and function of Pinus massoniana forests. A long-term study of Pinus massoniana forests in response to the gradual control of acid rain has not been so far. Over the past decade, we monitored the changes of structural characteristics, soil hydro-physical properties, soil nutrients and acidification characteristics of Pinus massoniana forest in the suburbs of Chongqing. The results showed that the density, average tree height and average diameter at breast height (DBH) of Pinus massoniana forest decreased after ten years, but species diversity index increased. Importance value, biomass and its proportion of coniferous species including Pinus massoniana and Cuninhama lanceolata decreased, with Pinus massoniana declining the most (P < 0.05); by contrast, the broadleaf species increased, with more young trees and medium to large diameter-trees added. Soil bulk density of each soil layer decreased, while soil non-capillary porosity increased. Total porosity and capillary porosity of the top soil layer also increased, but the bottom layer decreased. Soil pH decreased in all layers (P < 0.05), but soil exchangeable saline base ion content increased (P < 0.05), and humus layer and surface soil organic matter content also increased. Overall, under the background of weakened acid deposition, structure of Pinus massoniana forest in the acid rain region was effectively improved over the past decade. Soil hydro-physical properties were somewhat improved and showed a trend of recovering from acid rain impact, but compared with the control of acid rain, soil acidification improvement has an obvious lagging effect and its process is longer and more complex.