In order to study the correlation between the shallow groundwater and soil salinity in Nantong area, 31 water samples, 220 soil samples and 60 groups of water quality data were collected to analyse the characteristics of the shallow groundwater and soil salts. The results show that the total dissolved solids (TDS) in the shallow groundwater increases gradually from west to east which is highly correlated with the ions in the water (K+, Na+, Ca2+, Mg2+, Cl-, SO42-), and the groundwater is mainly constituted of Cl- Na type salty water and saline water. The salt content of the soil is basically similar to that of the groundwater, which increases gradually from west to east and also increases gradually with the depth of the soil. The saline soil type is chloride saline soil, dominated by weak saline soil, indicating that the salts in the soil mainly come from the groundwater. The TDS of the groundwater is highly correlated with the total soil salts and the ions (K+, Na+, Ca2+, Mg2+, Cl-, SO42-). Based on these findings, several linear prediction models of TDS and soil salinity were established. With these models, thepredicted average correlation coefficient can reach up to 0.839, and the average prediction accuracy reaches 88.93%, demonstrating the excellent performance of the models. This presents a new approach to finding out the TDS content in the groundwater from soil samples, which saves the cost of drilling wells.