In recent years, urban development and industrialization have caused the accumulation of heavy metals in soil. Pollution of soils signi?cantly reduces the environmental quality and affects the human health. Using chemical methods to evaluate soil pollution is both difficult and time consuming. In many recent studies magnetic susceptibility measurements have been employed for pollution monitoring as a non-destructive and fast technique. The objective of this research was to determine the spatial variability of magnetic susceptibility and the concentration of selected heavy metals and the effect of land use on their variations in surface soils of the Isfahan region. A total of 158 composite surface soil samples (0-5 cm) were taken from an area of about 700 km 2 . Locations of the sampling sites were determined using GPS and their land uses were recorded. The in situ magnetic susceptibility for the topsoil samples was measured by Bartington MS2F sensor in the field. The concentration of total copper (Cu), zinc (Zn), lead (Pb), manganese (Mn), iron (Fe), nickel (Ni), chromium (Cr) and cobalt (Co) and magnetic parameters including ?lf, ?hf, IRM 100mT , SIRM, IRM -100mT and NRM were measured in the soil samples. Selected soil properties including pH, electrical conductivity, organic matter, calcium carbonate equivalent and gypsum was also determined to understand the relationships between magnetic susceptibility and soil properties. It appears that the concentration of Cu and Zn has been affected by anthropogenic sources such as traffic emissions and industrial activities, while Mn, Pb and Fe can be attributed to both lithologic and anthropogenic sources. Moreover the concentration of Ni, Cr and Co are mainly controlled by natural sources in the study area. The concentration of Cu, Zn, Pb, Mn and Fe are positively correlated with magnetic properties (?lf, ?hf, IRM 100mT , SIRM, IRM -100mT and NRM) which could be attributed to an input from traffic emissions and industrial activities, while Ni and Cr concentrations showed negative significant correlations with magnetic properties. Additionally, no significant correlation existed between Co concentration and magnetic parameters. The Tomlinson pollution load index (PLI) showed a signi?cant correlation with the magnetic properties (?lf, IRM100mT, SIRM, IRM-100mT and NRM) and the soatial distribution of PLI in the study area showed that can be explaine in terms of the proximity of urban and industrial areas to the potential sources of pollution. The spatial distribution of the selected heavy metals and magnetic properties suggests that urban and industrial areas are more polluted as compared with other land uses in the study sites. It appears that the major factor controlling the enhancement of magnetic susceptibility and heavy metals pollution in the study area is anthropogenic influences on topsoil magnetic