Abstract: The effects of lead addition on soil microbial flora and functional diversity were studied under simulated conditions to screen out the sensitive microbial indicators of lead pollution in yellow-cinnamon soil. The results showed that lead nitrate significantly inhibited the populations of soil bacteria, actinomycetes and fungi. The inhibitory effect increased with the increasing lead concentration, and the inhibition influence decreased at late stage of incubation. Extremely significant negative correlations were observed between lead concentration and the number of bacteria, fungi and actinomycetes. The addition of lead at a low concentration (100 mg kg⁻¹) significantly reduced the number of culturable bacteria and actinomycetes, with the inhibition rates at 27.43% and 30.89%, respectively; the high concentration of lead (2500 mg kg⁻¹) addition significantly inhibited fungal population during the whole incubation stage, and the inhibition rate was about 90%. The metabolic activities and functional diversity indexes of soil microbial community were significantly inhibited by the lead treatments from the initial to the middle stage (1 ~ 14 d), except for the medium concentration lead addition treatment. At late stage (28 d), the richness and dominance of soil microbial community were significantly increased. Compared with the control, and low as well as high concentration of lead addition treatments, medium concentration lead addition treatment (500 mg kg⁻¹) was more conducive to maintain the higher metabolic activity and functional diversity of microbial community. Among the three culturable microorganisms, functional groups of actinomycetes were the most sensitive, followed by bacteria, and fungi were the least sensitive. Our study suggested that fungi could be applied as an indicator in reflecting the soil suffering from more serious lead pollution, while actinomycetes and bacteria could indicate the more light ones in yellow-cinnamon soil.