GIS-based soil information system(SIS) is very important for assessment of the capacity of land production, the status, rates of soil degradation and global change studies. In this paper, the research progresses in SIS development in recent years are introduced, including FAO Soil Map of World(SMW) and its revised legends, World Soil Database(SDB), World Soil and Terrain Digital Database(SOTER), World Inventory of Soils Emission potentials(WISE) and the progresses in USA and China; then two methods such as terrain analysis and geostatistics that used widely to diagnose soil spatial variability in soil mapping are presented. From the trend of SIS, it is necessary to integrate spatial analysis with GIS.