Abstract: Although the genetic types of the attapulgite clay deposits discovered in China have been car-ried out in some previous researches ,there are still some arguments about the division standard ,w hich is not clear enough .According to the analysis and studying of some materials related to attapulgite clay de-posits in China ,a new division standard of genesis is carried out in this paper .Three types such as sedi-mentary-type ,hydrothermal-type and weathering-type , and ten subtypes are firstly proposed , which means inland lakes volcanic sedimentary-sybtype ,inland lakes clastic sedimentary-subtype ,inland lakes chemical sedimentary-subtype ,marine sedimentary-subtype ,magmatic hydrothermal-subtypes ,groundw-ater hydrothermal-subtypes ,tectonic dynamic metamorphic hydrothermal-subtypes ,mixed hydrothermal-subtypes ,weathering leaching-subtypes and weathered eluvial-subtypes .The tectonic dynamic metamor-phic hydrothermal-subtypes are firstly proposed ,w hich have important significance on studying metallo-genic theory and developing exploration of attapulgite clay deposit .