The method for determination of total sulfur in soil sample by BaSO4 turbidimetric method was improved in this study.Experiments were conducted in order to determine the optimum conditions by studying variousparameters，including CH3COOH and Mg(NO 3)2 dosage.Sulfur contents of soil samples from a coal-fired power plant were determined with the improved method.The results showed that the optimal dosage of CH3COOH(1∶1)andMg(NO 3)2(308 g/L)were 15mL and 5mL，respectively.The improved method had high accuracy and precision.The total sulfur content of soil around the coal-fired power plant ranged from 95.71 mg/kg to 1 102.03 mg/kg，and the average was 412.48 mg/kg，which did not exceed the national average level.However，32% of the samples were above the nationalaverage，indicated that soil sulfur accumulated to a certain extent around the coal-fired powerplant，and should be paid more attention.