Soil management for environment-friendly agriculture depends on the effects of soil microbial activities and soil fertility. To improve soil health for the upland crops, this study evaluated a relationship between soil chemical properties and soil microbial diversities at 25 sites in upland soils in Gyeongnam Province. The average nutrients in the upland soils were 1.7 times for available phosphorous, 1.4 times for exchangeable potassium and 1.5 times for exchangeable calcium higher compared to recommend concentrations in the upland soils. We found a significant positive correlation between the soil organic matter and the soil microbial biomass C (p<0.01). Contents of organic matter and dehydrogenase in the inclined piedmont soils were significantly higher than those in the other topographical soils (p<0.05). In addition, concentrations of organic matter and microbial biomass C in the loam soils were significantly higher than in the silt loam soils (p<0.05). In principal component analyses of chemical properties and microbial populations in the upland soils, our findings suggested that available phosphorous should be considered as potential factor responsible for the clear upland soils differentiation. The soil organic matter was positive correlation with Bacillus sp. and fungi, whereas soil pH was also positive correlation with Pseudomonas sp. in upland soils.