Spatial pattern and heterogeneity of soil moisture is important for the hydrological process on the Loess Plateau. This study combined the classical and geospatial statistical techniques to examine the spatial pattern and heterogeneity of soil moisture along a transect scale (e.g. land use types and topographical attributes) on the Loess Plateau. The average values of soil moisture were on the order of farmland>orchard>grassland>abandoned land>shrubland>forestland. Vertical distribution characteristics of soil moisture (0–500cm) were similar among land use types. Highly significant (p<0.01) negative correlations were found between soil moisture and elevation (h) except for shrubland (p>0.05), whereas no significant correlations were found between soil moisture and plan curvature (Kh), stream power index (SPI), compound topographic index (CTI) (p>0.05), indicating that topographical attributes (mainly h) have a negative effect on the soil moisture spatial heterogeneity. Besides, soil moisture spatial heterogeneity decreased from forestland to grassland and farmland, accompanied by a decline from 15° to 1° alongside upper to lower slope position. This study highlights the importance of land use types and topographical attributes on the soil moisture spatial heterogeneity from a combined analysis of the structural equation model (SEM) and generalized additive models (GAMs), and the relative contribution of land use types to the soil moisture spatial heterogeneity was higher than that of topographical attributes, which provides insights for researches focusing on soil moisture varitions on the Loess Plateau.