Abstract: Spatial soil variation is a fundamental notion of pedology, formally expressed in the hierarchical system of soil taxonomy and soil associations. Recently, a possible approach to systematically analyze taxonomic diversity of pedosphere by methods employed in ecological studies was presented, drawing a parallel with the concept of biodiversity in ecology. By introducing diversity concept and its measurement methodology, the padeotaxa diversity of the soils developedondifferent kinds parent rocksin Hainan Province was analyzed on the basis of data complied in 1: 200 000 SOTER database. Here, proportional abundance (Shannon Index) of pedotaxa were used to estimate diversity in terms of richness (number of taxonomic categories: main soil groups) and evenness (distribution of pedotaxa by areal abundance). The results show that peoddiversity of the soils developed on the different parent rocks followed such a sequence: igneous rocks, sedimentary rocks, loose sediments and metamorphic rocks (with diversity indices 2.02, 1.65, 1.25 and 0.96 respectively), while of all kinds of rocks, the highest diversity index was measured in the soils developed on seashore accumulations (with the value 1.99), and the lowest on rhyolitic rocks (with the value 0.42). Furthermore, the relationships between areas of parent rocks and richness, pedodiversity, evenness of the soils developed were discussed for a better understanding of the so-called area-diversity effect. Besides, the algorithms of object abundance model employed in ecological study were introduced to demonstrate distribution model of the soils. It was indicated that the area distributions of the soils developed on different kinds of rocks, at various degrees, seemed to fit the logarithmic normal distribution model. Although the most of the conclusions drawn from this case study concerning soil richness, diversity and distribution at a moderate scale were axiomatic or already known from general soil concepts and models, as an innovative methodology, pedodiversity should exert its impact on further assessments of regional soil system, land use and management and environmental protection. In fact, it was already suggested that pedodiversity could be useful in a number of practical applications and be expected to play an important role in exploring, quantifying and comparing the complexity of soil patterns in different areas and environments.