Parent materials as one of the major soil formation factors, have a great effect on soil properties. Binaloud zone, around Mashhad, has such a good geological variability and is a suitable location to study residual soils. The aims of this study were to characterize morphological, physical and chemical properties of soils derived from different parent materials in Binaloud zone and to investigate the concept of residual soils based on their evolution. Two soil profiles in the summit of granitic, ultrabasic and metamorphic rocks were sampled from genetic horizons. Physical and chemical properties including texture, equivalent CaCO3, organic matter, gypsum, pH, CEC and EC were measured for genetic horizons. Coarse texture and shallow depth of the soils indicate the low weathering intensity and formation of cambic, calcic and gypsic horizons is majority of soil development in the area. Granite and ultrabasic soils had the most amounts of sand and clay, respectively and metamorphic soils were in between. CEC varies from 7.8 in metamorphic soils to 35.9 cmol (+) kg-1 in ultrabasic soils. The lack of correlation between CEC and clay content suggests that clay type has more important effect than amount of clay on CEC. According to rocks composition, the presence of considerable amount of gypsum and CaCO3 in the soils cannot attribute to weathering. As wind has an important role in this arid region, gypsum and CaCO3 have probably been added to soil profiles by wind activity. In conclusion, based on obtained results, the studied soils cannot be considered completely as residual soils.