[Objective] The characteristics of soil respiration rates were studied in different land use types of the hilly region in the Loess Plateau in order to investigate the features of the carbon cycle of different land use types.[Methods] Soil carbon flux of five land use types such as Onobrychis viciifolia, Medicago sativa, abandoned land, M. sativa with terraces and Astragalus adsurgens in standard runoff plots were monitored by LI-8 100 system, the surface temperature, soil temperature at 5 cm and soil moisture were monitored.[Results] ① The diurnal variation of soil respiration rates showed peak curves with higher in the day time and lower in the night time, which showed the same trend with temperature. The annual soil respiration rates were as follows:A. adsurgens (terraced)[2.27 μmol/(m²·s)] > O. viciaefolia[1.79 μmol/(m²·s)] > M. sativa[1.77 μmol/(m²·s)] > M. sativa (terraced)[1.62 μmol/(m²·s)] > abandoned land[0.77 μmol/(m²·s)]. ② Soil respiration rates showed obvious seasonal variation, and the highest appeared in summer, followed by spring and summer, the lowest was in winter. There were significant differences of soil respiration rates between summer and other seasons(p<0.05). ③ The correlation between soil respiration rates, surface and soil temperature were significant in different land use types (p<0.05). The correlation between soil respiration rate and soil temperature was higher than that of surface temperature in all the land use types except abandoned land, soil temperature values (5 cm) Q₁₀ of each site varied from 1.94 to 3.00. ④ No significant linear relationship was found between soil respiration rates and soil moisture (p>0.05), whereas significant correlation was exhibited between soil respiration rate and the interactions of soil temperature with soil moisture (p<0.01).[Conclusion] Soil respiration rates of terrace are better than slope land, and the soil quality was significantly improved by vegetation restoration.