Determination of chemical elements was performed in urban and suburban areas of Zibo City. For this purpose, the statistical principles, univariate and multivariate Nemerow comprehensive index, Hakanson potential ecological risk methods were applied in order to assess the geochemical characteristics of these elements, soil environment quality, potential ecological risks, and their impact on environment and crops. The investigation reveals that the values of Hg, Cd, S, Pb, Se, OrgC and some other components at the surface soil are significantly higher than those in deep soil, that there exists poor correlation of elements and index between surface and deep soil, and surface soil samples, affected by different degrees of human activities, are obviously alkaline. Furthermore, single pollutant evaluation shows various degrees of contamination of Cd, Cu, Hg, Ni, and Zn in soil, in which the pollution area of Cd is the biggest, accounting for 5.11% of the whole city, and the comprehensive pollutant evaluation of overall soil is effective, which reveals that 9.84% of the soil samples have been contaminated, and its formation may be associated with industrial production and human activities. Heavy metals Hg, Cd seem to be the highest potential ecological risk elements, and local area has reached strong or extreme potential ecological risk level, whereas the comprehensive potential ecological risk evaluation is overall medium, with the mild, moderate, strong and extreme harm area accounting for 29.32%, 55.02%, 12.85%, 2.81%, respectively. From the spatial distribution, strong and extreme potential ecological risk areas coincide types of industrial space layout; furthermore, the values of Cd, Pb, Zn, Hg and other heavy metals of the crop samples exceed the standard limits in different degrees, which suggests that the soil and agricultural products should be monitored and evaluated cooperatively to prevent heavy metal pollution and aggravate human health.