Abstract A series of paddy and non-paddy soil profiles that are developed in chronosequences from approximately 50 to 1000 years of exposure time on fairly uniform marine deposits under nearly identical landscape and climate conditions were sampled from Cixi, Zhejiang Province, China, where rice has been traditionally grown under water submergence. Master horizons were identified and sampled. Selected pedogenic properties such as soil organic carbon (SOC) content, clay content, fractions of iron, total manganese and pH were used to characterize the horizons. To compare the differences between paddy and non-paddy profiles, all paddy profiles are taken as one group and all non-paddy profiles as another. The measured properties were averaged over 0–100 cm soil depth. Results showed that paddy group contained significantly (p