The study aims to analyze the research dynamics of soil in Chinese fir plantations, and to provide data support for researchers in China to carry out soil research in cedar plantation forests in the future. This study is based on the CiteSpace software and adopts the bibliometric method to conduct a visual analysis of the target literature on the soil of Chinese fir plantations from 1994 to 2024 in the China National Knowledge Infrastructure (CNKI), and constructs a knowledge map. The results showed that, from 1994 to 2024, CNKI included a total of 29700 pieces of literature on soil research in Chinese fir plantations, with 3163 pieces of valid literature remaining after eliminating the invalid ones, and the published journals were mainly forestry and ecology journals such as Acta Ecologica Sinica, Scientia Silvae Sinicae, and Journal of Central South University of Forestry & Technology, etc; the research institutes mainly included Fujian Agricultural and Forestry University, Fujian Normal University, Central South University of Forestry and Technology, and Research Institute of Forestry, Chinese Academy of Forestry; and the top 10 keywords mainly appeared in the fields of 'soil nutrients', 'apoptosis' and 'microbial community'. Domestic researchers and scholars have scattered research topics in the field of soil in Chinese fir plantations, and it is recommended that in-depth research be conducted in the future in the fields of Chinese fir soil microbial communities, forest root crowns, limitations of forest growth and development, and biodiversity conservation.