Soil nematodes are sensitive to environmental changes and widely used as indicators of soil conditions.  The community structure and diversity of soil nematodes were studied in different long-term land use regimes in the black soil area in Northeast China.  The land use regimes were maintained for 22 years, and included crop land (CL), grass land (GL) and bare land (BL).  Soil samples were taken throughout the growing season, and nematodes were extracted and identified.  A total of 39 nematode genera with relative abundance over 0.1% were identified.  Heterodera was a dominant genus in CL; Boleodorus was a dominant genus in GL, and Boleodorus, Eucephalobus and Filenchus were the dominant genera in BL.  Land use had significant effect on abundance of all soil nematode tropic groups and ecological indices.  Sampling time had an effect on soil nematode abundance, but not on eight nematode ecological indices except MI (Maturity index of free-living nematode), CI (Channel index) and EI (Enrichment index).  SR was highest in GL where plant species richness was also high.  The CI was the highest in BL among three land uses, which means the soil food web dominated with fungal decomposition channels in BL.  Soil nematode community structure and diversity was shown to be an effective and informative tool for analyzing ecological aspects of land use in black soil region.  The data are inconclusive as to whether the effect of land use on soil nematode parameters is direct, or indirect via inducing changes in soil physiochemical properties.