Abstract: In order to study the soil heavy metal pollution in a gold mining area in Qinghai province, we collected 442 soil samples and tested the content of heavy metal elements (As, Cd, Hg, Pb, Cn, Zn, Cr, and Ni). Nemerou index method and Geo_accumulation index method were used to evaluate the influence of heavy metal pollution. Results show that the heavy metals pollution was mild, just arsenic elements to produce a certain degree of pollution, 69.43% of the samples were contaminated with arsenic by the Nemerou index method, and 59.24% of the samples were contaminated with arsenic by the Geo_accumulation index method, two kinds of evaluation result is more close to. The main metallic minerals in the gold ores are pyrite and arsenopyrite, dressing experiment found that arsenic content in the samples reached 0.38%, more than the evaluation standard of associated components, in the subsequent mining development, strengthen the comprehensive recycling of arsenic, is one of the effective methods to reduce the pollution to the environment.