摘要Vegetation classification is an important topic in plant ecology and many quantitative techniques for classification have been developed in the field. The arti-ficial neural network is a comparatively new tool for data analysis. The self-organizing feature map (SOFM) is powerful tool for clustering analysis. SOFM has been applied to many research fields and it was applied to the classification of plant communities in the Pangquangou Nature Reserve in the present work. Pangquangou Nature Reserve, located at 37°20'-38°20' N, 110°18'-111°18' E, is a part of the Luliang Mountain range. Eighty-nine samples (quadrats) of 10 m x 10 m for for-est, 4 m × 4 m for shrubland and 1m x 1m for grass-land along an elevation gradient, were set up and species data was recorded in each sample. After discussion of the mathematical algorism, clustering technique and the pro-cedure of SOFM, the classification was carried out by using NNTool box in MATLAB (6.5). As a result, the 89 samples were clustered into 13 groups representing 13 types of plant communities. The characteristics of each community were described. The result of SOFM clas-sification was identical to the result of fuzzy c-mean clus-tering and consistent with the distribution patterns of vegetation in the study area and shows significant eco-logical meanings. This suggests that SOFM may clearly describe the ecological relationships between plant com-munities and it is a very effective quantitative technique in plant ecology research.