Soybean is an important source of oil and vegetable protein and plays a key role in agricultural production and economy. A suitability evaluation of soybean cultivation is important for identifying potential soybean planting areas. Based on the raster data of soybean harvest ratio (FSHA) and climate-soil-topographic environmental factors, we used MaxEnt to simulate the soybean planting suitability and potential distribution in China and the future trends of soybean cultivation under climate change. The result shows that the suitability of soybean cultivation was primarily influenced by elevation, precipitation of warmest quarter, capacity of the clay fraction, slope, mean diurnal temperature range, accumulated temperature ≥10℃, solar radiation and topsoil gravel content. High-suitability and moderate-suitability area are respectively 44.61 Mha and 71.12 Mha in China. High-suitability areas for soybean are mainly concentrated in the Northeast Plain, the North China Plain and the northern parts of the middle and lower Yangtze River plain. There were many provinces with high soybean planting potential but low development degrees, including Hebei, Henan, Shandong, Tianjin, Jilin, Liaoning, Jiangsu, Hubei and Shaanxi. Under future climate scenarios (SSP126, SSP245 and SSP585) of multiple global circulation models in CMIP6, the area highly or moderately suitable for soybean cultivation is generally stable, while low suitability area shows growth evidently. The total increase of three suitability area is the most obvious under SSP245 during 2021-2040, accounting for more than 5% in the base of historical data. In the future, most parts of Northeast China (eastern Inner Mongolia, Heilongjiang and eastern and northern Jilin), parts of north-central China (northern Hebei, northern Shanxi and Shaanxi) and parts of southwest China (eastern Sichuan, Chongqing, northern Guizhou and Yunnan) may be more suitable for soybean cultivation. This study provides a practical reference for current and future soybean planting layout and relative countermeasures
