Little is known about the land use and vertical patterns of the soil organic carbon (SOC) and soil inorganic carbon (SIC) pools in the subalpine grassland of the Guizhou Plateau with experienced extensive landuse changes. We investigated Unused natural grassland (UG), Buffalo grazing grassland (BG), Mosaic grassland (MG), Shrubland (SL), Afforest land (AL), Secondary forest land (SF) and Cropland (CL) to depict the land use- and depth-related patterns of SOC and SIC in the upper half-meter soils. The results displayed that MG had the highest SOC stocks (16.21 kg m^-2), but BG had the lowest SOC stocks (3.62 kg m^-2). BG had the highest SIC stock (2.01 kg m^-2), but SL had the lowest SIC stock (0.93 kg m^-2). SOC stock was more affected by land use and SIC stock was more affected by soil depth. In addition, land use impacted the SOC stock within specific soil chemical ranges, land use indirectly changed the SIC stock via its influence on soil chemical properties. This study provided interesting snapshots on the effects of land use and soil depth on soil physicochemical properties, enzyme activities and SOC and SIC stocks with the regulations of soil factors.