Abstract Understanding the distribution of soil organic carbon and nitrogen (OC(N)) content, cation exchange capacity (CEC), and specific surface area (SSA) in different soil particle sizes is crucial for studying soil fertility and properties. In this study, we investigated the distribution characteristics of the OC(N), CECand SSA in different particles of yellow–brown soil under different methods. The result revealed that as the particle size decreased, the soil OC(N), SSA and CEC content gradually increase. The content of OC and ON different soil particles ranged from 1.50–28.16 g·kg−1 to 0.18–3.78 g·kg−1, respectively, and exhibited significant differences between different particles. We observed good linear relationships between OC and ON in different particle sizes of yellow–brown soil under different utilization methods, with correlation coefficients ranging from 0.86 to 0.98, reaching a very significant level (n = 12, p