Objective  The purpose of this paper is to analyze the existing research on soil characteristics of coal mining collapse areas in China from the perspective of regional characteristics, to summarize the similarities and differences of research results between regions, and to provide a basis for the restoration and comprehensive management of coal mining collapse areas.

  Method  CiteSpace and VOSviewer software were used to select relevant literature in the field of soil properties in coal mining collapse areas from CNKI and Web of Science core databases from 1993 to 2021. Visual analysis was carried out in terms of keywords and areas of research.

  Result  ① The number of publications in this field generally showed an increasing trend in recent years. ② The selection of the study areas had obvious regional concentration characteristics, and the regional characteristics could be divided into four types: central-eastern plain region, northwestern sandy region, loess gully region, and southwestern mountainous region. ③ The central-eastern plain mining region was flat and mostly located in the high diving area, and the soil water content was more affected by mining subsidence. The topography of the loess gully mining region was undulating, the surface deformation of the collapse area was serious, the physical clay particles were reduced, and the soil capacity decreased. The northwestern sandy mining region was mostly located in arid and semi-arid areas, the ecological environment was fragile, the mining subsidence made the loss of fine soil particles, and the soil capacity decreased significantly. The southwestern mountainous mining region was mainly distributed in the mountainous area, the rainfall is abundant, and the soil capacity of the coal mining collapse area increased significantly.

  Conclusion  The influence of coal mining subsidence on soil properties is limited by a number of factors, resulting in changes in soil grain and structure, soil water content and soil nutrients, but showing different patterns of change in different areas.