A pot-cultured experiment was carried out to investigate the grain yield and nitrogen use efficiency ofspring maize in six major types of farmland under different nitrogen fertilizer rates（i.e., 0, 0.10, 0.14, 0.16 and 0.18 g N/kg soil, equivalent to 0, 168, 240, 270 and 312 kg N/hm² in the field experiment）. The correlations betweenmaize grain yield and partial factor productivity of nitrogen fertilizer（PFP_N） with soil properties were evaluated. Theresults showed that the maize grain yield tended to increase whereas the PFP_N tended to decrease with the increas-ing nitrogen fertilizer rates. For the different types of soil, the average of maize grain yield was in such order: albicsoil ＞ dark brown soil ＞ meadow soil ＞ alluvium soil ＞ black soil ＞ aeolian sandy soil. The average of PFP_N was darkbrown soil ＞ albic soil ＞meadow soil ＞ alluvium soil ＞ black soil ＞ aeolian sandy soil. The maize grain yield and PFP_N were positively correlated with the silt（0.02-0.002 mm） content, total porosity, capillary porosity, and field capac-ity of soils, and negatively correlated with the fine sand（0.2-0.02 mm） content, microaggregate（0.25-0.05 mm） con-tent, bulk density, p H value, and urease and acid phosphatase activities of soils.