###### Abstract  
As a primary sink of pollutants, urban soil heavy metal pollution and its influence on urban residents and ecosystems has been becoming one of the most important environmental problems. In the present study, four indices, the Geaaccumulation index (\(I_{gov}\)), improved Nemerow index (\(I_{MN}\)), degree of contamination (\(mC_{d}\)), and contamination security index (\(CSI\)), as well as potential ecological risk (\(RI\)), were used to evaluate individual or integrated heavy metal pollution and its ecological risk for soil samples collected from city parks, the vicinity of a landfill, and an industrial area within the city of Guangzhou. The results indicated that the improved Nemerow index (\(I_{MN}\)) calculated from the Geoaccumulation index was suitable for heavy metal pollution assessment of soils within landfills and industrial areas. As for soils collected from city parks, degree of contamination (\(mC_{d}\)) was more suitable than \(I_{MN}\). Heavy metals Cd, Hg, Zn, and As were the main pollution elements in urban soils of Guangzhou. Potential ecological risks were mainly caused by Cd and Hg in urban soil of Guangzhou. Soil samples collected from city parks and the vicinity of the industrial area were moderately to highly and even extremely seriously polluted by heavy metals. Differing from the traditional cognition of the public, the ecological impact of heavy metal in soil in the vicinity of the landfill was similar to or even better than that within city parks. ecological risk; heavy metal pollution; surface soil; city parks; vicinity of landfill; industrial area; Guangzhou 2022129345. 15 September 202218 September 202218 September 202218 September 202218 September 202218 September 202218 September 202218 September 202218 September 202218 September 202218 September 202218 September 20218 September 202218 September 202218 September 2022  
integration and comparison studies of soil heavy metal pollution for different function areas within a city are limited. The study of soil heavy metal pollution for south China has been becoming a hotspot of environmental science due to the high geochemical background and the increasing human activities [41; 42; 43; 44; 45; 46; 47; 48; 49; 50; 51]. As the largest city in Southern China, many previous studies focused on heavy metal pollution of urban soil for different areas in Guangzhou. Compared to soil background values, heavy metals Cd, Cu, Hg, Mn, Pb, and Zn were significantly enriched in surface soil of Guangzhou due to a long history of urbanization and industrial activities [52; 53; 54; 55; 56; 57; 58; 59; 60; 61]. However, few studies simultaneously concerned soil heavy metal pollution for different function areas in Guangzhou. According to the conceptual FEP model proposed by [PERSON] et al., the identification of pollution status which represents the \"Feature\" is an essential step for assessing the potential impact of heavy metal pollution [62]. As for the pollution assessment method, integrated pollution indices and the ecological risk index are useful tools that were widely used in previous studies. At least six indices were used for soil heavy metal pollution assessment by previous studies [63; 64; 21; 65; 66; 67]. However, the assessed results using different methods were much different [11; 14; 43; 55; 68; 69; 70; 71; 72; 73; 74; 75]. Therefore, selecting a proper index is a key for accurately acquiring the degree of contamination. In the present study, heavy metal concentrations in surface soil samples collected from city parks, the vicinity of a landfill, and an industrial area within Guangzhou were simultaneously measured. Four pollution indices (\(I_{ga}\), \(I_{MN}\), \(mC_{d}\), and \(CSI\)) and the potential ecological risk index (\(RI\)) were used to assess heavy metal pollution degree and its ecosystem risks, respectively.