Nitrogen (N) is one of the most important elements for plant nutrition.It is necessary to apply reliable methods for N determination in soils.Among the different methods of total N determination in soils,the Kjeldahl method (wet oxidation) and the elemental analyzer (Dumas dry combustion method) are more frequently used.In this study,black soil was sampled from Heilongjiang provinces in Northeast China and calcareous fluvoaquic soil sample was from Shandong provinces in North China Plain.The objective of this study was to compare soil total N contents determined by a CNS elemental analyzer (vario PYRO cube,Elementar Analysensysteme GmbH) and an automated Kjeldahl N determination instrument (BCHI Labortechnik AG).The results showed that total N contents of black soil samples measured by the elemental analyzer and the automated microKjeldahl method were(1.37±0.01)g/kg and(1.36±0.01)g/kg（mean±SD）,respectively.The N contents of fluvoaquic soil samples were(0.75±0.02）g/kg through the elemental analyzer method and(0.78±0.03)g/kg by the automated Kjeldahl method.The t test found there was no significant difference of soil N measured by two kinds of instruments.Both methods for soil N measurement had a high precision with relative standard deviation (RSD) less than 5%.