Pedogenetic soil horizons are one of the fundamental building blocks of modern soil classification; however,in soils of urban areas which are often strongly disturbed by human activities,horizons are difficult to distinguish but substitutive morphological layers may be identified.To identify the characteristic soil layers in an urban environment,224 soil layers of 36 in-situ pedons were examined and described in urban and suburban Nanjing,and 27 variables were extracted for multivariate analysis.Three groups and six subdivisions were identified by TwoStep cluster analysis combined with hierarchical cluster analysis based on factor scores.Soil forming factors and soil forming processes could be interpreted from the principal component analysis (PCA) of variables,cluster analysis of soil layers,and discriminant analysis of soil layer groups and their subdivisions.Parent materials,moisture regimes,organic matter accumulation,and especially nutrient accumulation were the main causes of characteristic soil layer formations.The numerical approaches used in this study were useful tools for characteristic soil layer identification of urban soils.