Abstract: As an important component of total soil phosphorus (P), mineralized organic P (P_o) is a major source of replenishing bioavailable P pool in many terrestrial ecosystems. There are many forms of P_o with different bioavailability in soil. These forms of P_o also differ in their ability of resisting the hydrolysis catalyzed by phosphatases. It is therefore necessary to accurately determine the forms and mineralization rates of soil P_o to understand the biogeochemical cycling of P_o and to use the legacy P_o in soil. The aims were to clarify the advantages, disadvantages, scopes of application of several most commonly used approaches of determining the forms and mineralization rate of soil P_o. The selected 92 papers in the databases of CNKI and the Web of Science in recent 20 years with a topic of the forms and mineralization rate of soil P_o were discussed. Three approaches of determining the forms of soil P_o were reviewed, including sequential fractionation procedure, enzyme addition assays and ³¹P nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy. There is no a ‘best’ approach of determining the forms and mineralization rate of soil P_o. However, scientists can select a ‘proper’ one according to the physical-chemical properties of targeted soils and experimental goals. It is recommended to carry out more researches on the following fields: developing a standard procedure of enzyme addition assays, jointly utilizing ¹³C and ³¹P nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy to identify more unsolved P_o forms, modifying methods of determining mineralization rate of soil P_o to reflect the effects of plants, and combinedly utilizing approaches of determining the forms and mineralization rate to understand the mechanisms of transformation and mineralization of soil P_o.