Soil environmental quality standard (GB 15618-2018) in China has made restrictions on heavy metal contents for agricultural land. The risk screening values and intervention values are divided into four segments according to soil pH. However it is still unreasonable to evaluate the safety of agricultural production under some cases relying on the standards, due to the complexity of soil properties and the differences of the absorption of heavy metals by vegetables. This study chose nationwide vegetables and corresponding cultivated soils as research objects to explore the difference of absorption and enrichment characteristics of heavy metals in different vegetables. It integrated 977 sample groups in all through literature search and sample collection. Also the cadmium (Cd) soil-plant transport model was established to the safe production threshold for vegetables in the soil. The results showed that the contents of eight heavy metals in vegetables conformed to positive skewed distribution. The median values of Cadmium (Cd), lead (Pb), arsenic (As), chromium (Cr), mercury (Hg), copper (Cu), zinc (Zn) and nickel (Ni) content were 0.62 mg/kg, 2.29 mg/kg, 0.66 mg/kg, 1.05 mg/kg, 0.05 mg/kg, 6.17 mg/kg, 25.35 mg/kg, and 0.11 mg/kg, respectively. The Pb, Cd, Hg, As and Cr content in edible parts of vegetables had exceeded the standards to varying degrees, according to the limits made in food contaminant standard (GB 2762-2017). Lead had the highest exceeding rate. The bioconcentration factors (BCF) of heavy metals in different kinds of vegetables distributed in log normal mostly. Among the five toxic elements, vegetables showed the highest enrichment level of Cd and BCF of Cd ranged from 0.001 to 25. The Cd BCF geometric mean of leafy, root, fruit and leguminous vegetables was about 9-68, 4-25, 3-37, 4-28 times respectively compared to other elements. Therefor the enrichment ability of vegetables to elements could be quite different. Among different kinds of vegetables, leafy and root vegetables had stronger enrichment ability. Leafy vegetables were more likely to absorb Cd and Ni while root vegetables enriched Pb, Zn, Cu and Cr more easily. This study established the prediction equations for Cd transfer of leafy and fruit vegetables in the soil-plant system. It concluded that Cd content in edible parts was positively correlated with Cd content in soil. The soil total Cd explained 55%、76.86%、16.87% and 51.8% of Cd content variance in leafy, root, fruit and leguminous vegetables, respectively. However the relationship between Cd content in vegetable, soil Cd content and pH could not be well fitted (r2<0.1, p<0.001) by a linear regression model. Although the extended Freundlich-type function improved the correlation performance of Cd transfer equations. These results indicated that the data of a wider range of paired samples or more detailed restrictions on the types of vegetables were required, in the further study of prediction the Cd transfer between soil-plant system. The conclusion of this study provides theoretical basis for the farmland soil management and relatively rational cultivation choose of vegetables for clean argricultural production and food safety ensurance.