Abstract: The sound-producing sand grains have long been a puzzling and pending problem in nature. The singing sands within the geoparks of northern China are scattered along a discontinuous curved desert zone, which, however, have been rarely studied and reported. The singing sands record and reflect the evolution process of deserts, and hence serve as an important geo-relic. In this study, the authors tried to investigate and compare the booming sands and silent sands from several deserts within the geoparks of northern China in the aspects of geomorphic features, distribution, particle size composition and major mineral components, and attempted to figure out the similarities and differences between the singing and silent sands. The booming sands of Bo Longke Sand Lake of Ongniud Geopark at the Autonomous Region level, the Yin Ken Sound-Producing Sand Bay of Ordos National Geopark, the Mount Mingshashan of Yardang National Geopark of Dunhuang, and the silent sands of the Kumtag Desert and the northeast of the Mount Mingshashan of Dunhuang Yardang National Geopark were all included in the study. And these singing and silent sand examples were investigated by using particle size analysis and X-ray diffraction and fluorescence. Some conclusions have been reached: 1) Singing sands from the above desert geo-relics mainly are developed on meniscus dune or barchan chain, and these singing sands are close to lake or spring water; both the leeward slope and windward slope develop singing sands, with the latter slope being more important; the silent sands, however, are developed on the windward slope. This result is inconsistent with the sound-box theory put forward by Ma Yu-ming that holds that all the singing sands are developed on the leeward slope; 2) The silent sands have apparently coarser particle sizes than the singing sands. The average particle size peaks of the silent sands are between 0.5φ and 1φ, whereas those of the singing sands are between 2φ and 3φ; among the four particle size parameters, the average grain sizes of the singing sands and silent sands are obviously different from each other. The average size particle of the silent sand sample from the Kumtag Desert is 0.998φ, and that of the silent sand sample from the Mount Mingshashan of Dunhuang is 0.82φ, much larger than that of other singing sand samples; the percentages of the fine sands and coarse sands are evidently different from each other, among which the fine sand percentages of all the singing sand samples are higher than 52.012%, and those of the silent sand sample are lower than 0.881%; the content of coarse sands of all the singing sands samples is lower than 1.221%, while that of the silent sand samples is higher than 48.091%; the size grading factor and coefficient of kurtosis of the singing and silent sands are similar; in terms of the sorting feature, the singing sand sample from the Mount Mingshashan of Dunhuang exhibits better sorting features than any other singing and silent sand samples, while the silent sands from the northeast of the Mount Mingshashan exhibit the poorest sorting features; 3) The major minerals of both the singing sands and the silent sands are quartz and feldspar; the singing and silent sands comprise different secondary mineral components: the singing sands contain kaolinite, albite, microcline and calsite, while the silent sands rarely contain such secondary mineral components, which is mainly determined by the source of the sand grains and climate; in addition, the problem whether the minor content in the singing sands is the defining factor for the booming of the singing sands remains to be investigated. The results obtained by the authors indicate that the geomorphic features and material composition can contribute to differentiating the singing sands and silent sands as well as figuring out the cause of the formation of the singing sands.