Soil seed bank is an important part of plant community, which dominates the development of community succession. Soil seed bank characteristics of copper tailings and its adjacent habitat were investigated. The results showed that the seed density of the seed bank between different community microhabitats in the copper tailings were different, the range of which was 57-593 grains/m². The average seed density of the seed bank in the tailings was 370 grains/m², and that in the tailings dam and the mountains was 999 and 121 grains/m², respectively. The difference of the sorensen's coefficients on species between the seed banks in the tailings was greater, the range of which was 0.308-0.636. These showed that the effects of microhabitat on seed density and species of soil seed bank was huge. The seeds of the soil seed banks in all the plots concentrated in 0-5 cm layer. The sorensen's coefficient of species between the tailings seed bank and the vegetation was 0.355, and lower than the coefficient of species between the tailings dam and the vegetation. The species diversity, abundance and evenness index of the soil seed banks all displayed the followed trend: the tailings dam > the tailings > the mountains. The seedling of 16 families 44 genera 53 species from the tailings seed bank were germinated and survived in the farmland soil substrates, and only 9 families 36 genera 45 species in the tailings substrates survived. The plants germinated and grow well all belonged to Gramineae, Composite and Leguminosae, and the three families were also constituted the main vegetation types of the tailings. The seedling germination and survival rate of the tailings seed bank in the tailings substrates was 62.2%-91.2%, which was about 2 times of the dam soil seed bank and the mountains soil seed bank. This indicated that the seeds of the tailings seed bank already adapted to the extreme environment of the tailing, or they were tolerant plants. The study suggested that the microhabitat affected the seed density and the species composition of the copper tailings seed bank, through human activities changing microhabitat conditions could improve seed density and species diversity of soil seed bank, thus would speed up the process of succession and recovery of the tailings vegetation.