Abstract: This study aims to determine the reference areas for the arrangement of background points in soil environment monitoring in Henan Province. Firstly,based on the data of 1;200,000 regional geochemical stream sediment surveys and 1;250,000 land quality geochemical surveys of Henan Province as well as the map of soil parent materials of Henan Province, outliers were eliminated using iteration and a statistical method according to the definition of geochemical background. Then the background interval values of five heavy metals (i.e.,Cd, As, Pb, Hg, and Cr) in parent materials of different types were calculated according to the ±2 deviationof the mean. Finally, data points were extracted according to the background interval values of each element and then the grid of the data points was extracted using the software ArcGIS. In this way, the reference areasfor the background points layout in Henan Province were formed. This study will provide technical bases for the optimization of background points in the soil environment monitoring in Henan Province.