The basic soil-mapping unit is Soil Series which is named after the place (town, estates or village) where it was first described and classified, and no similarity in its set of properties with previous soil series in the database. For cartographic purposes, soil series that have been mapped are then represented spatially on the map either as single units or in combination with other soil series as in soil associations and soil complexes to show their distributions and extents.

The soil series are differentiated mainly on the basis of significant variations in morphological, chemical and mineralogical properties of the soil. These properties include mainly the type, thickness and arrangement of horizons, and their structure, colour, texture, consistency, content of carbonates and other salts, content of humus and mineralogical composition. To date, the total of 323 soil series have been established in Peninsular Malaysia.

The purpose of this soils portal is to highlight the profile description, analytical data and the suitability evaluation for common soil series in Peninsular Malaysia which have been gathered during soil survey mapping and soil correlation tour.

Geotanih (geo – geography; tanih – soil) is a soil information system developed by Soil Resource Management Division, Department of Agriculture Malaysia (DOA). DOA is a lead agency and custodian for soil information in Peninsular Malaysia. DOA also responsible in soil survey, for soil mapping and maintaining the registered database.