Abstract: Taking the long-term reforestation experimental base established in a severely degraded sub-tropical hilly red soil region in Taihe County of Jiangxi Province in 1991 as the object, this paper studied the changes of soil nutrients and microbial communities after 19 years reforestation of Pinus elliottii forest, Liquidambar formosana forest, and P. elliotti-L. formosana forest, with the naturally restored  grassland as the control. The soil organic carbon content in the L. formosana and P. elliottii-L. formosana forests (15.16±3.53 and 16.42±0.49 g·kg^-1, respectively) was significantly higher than that in the control (9.30±1.13 g·kg^-1), the soil total phosphorus content was in the order of the control (0.30±0.02 g·kg^-1) > P. elliottii-L. formosana forest (0.22±0.04 g·kg^-1) > L. formosana forest (0.14±0.01 g·kg^-1), while the soil available phosphorus content was 1.66±0.02 mg·kg^-1 in L. formosana forest, 2.47±0.27 mg·kg^-1 in P. elliottii-L. formosana forest, and 1.15±0.71 mg·kg^-1 in P. elliottii forest, being significantly higher than that in the control (0.01±0.00 mg·kg^-1). The total amounts of soil microbes, the amount and percentage of soil bacteria, and the amount of inorganic and organic phosphatesolubilizing microbes in L. formosana forest and P. elliottii-L. formosana forest were all significantly higher than those in P. elliottii forest and the control, while the amount and percentage of soil fungi and the percentage of soil actinomycetes in L. formosana forest and P. elliottii-L. formosana forest were significantly lower than those in the control. The soil organic carbon content was significantly positively correlated with the percentage of soil bactera, but negatively correlated with the percentage of soil fungi and actinomycetes, while the soil available phosphorus content was significantly positively correlated with the amount of organic phosphatesolubilizing microes, but not with the amount of inorganic phosphate-solubilizing microbes. It was suggested that L. formosana forest and P. elliottii-L. formosana forest could be the recommended reforestation models in sub-tropical degraded red soil region.