Soil erosion is an important part of land ecological change and global environmental change. In southern China, the red soil hilly area is a region with serious soil erosion and water and soil loss. In this study, the spatial distribution of soil erosion and its change induced by land use types were obtained with the spatial operation analysis technology of a geographic information system and the revised universal soil loss equation model (RUSLE). The results show that soil erosion is most very lightly eroded in the study area as a whole, and has a wide yet relatively concentrated distribution, namely spatial aggregation distribution. The average soil erosion rate is the highest in Zhenghe County, followed by Wuyishan City, Shunchang County and Changting County, and relatively low in other counties. Further analysis on soil erosion under different land use types shows that erosion is more serious in unused land, orchard, dry land and rural settlements, and less severe in grassland, urban land, woodland and paddy field. This can be explained by the differences in vegetation cover, soil and water conservation measures, and the degree of human disturbance under different land use patterns.