Atmospheric sulfur deposition onto typical farmland in East China was investigated using both field measurements and numerical modeling. The field measurements were conducted at the Experiment Station of Red Soil Ecology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, 10 km from Yingtan, Jiangxi Province, East China, between November 1998 and October 1999, and at the Changshu Ecological Experiment Station, Chinese Academy of Sciences, in a rapidly developing region of Jiangsu Province, East China, between April 2001 and March 2002. The regional acid deposition model system (RegADMS), in which the dry deposition velocities of SO2 and sulfate aerosols (SO42-) were estimated using a big-leaf resistance analogy model, was applied to simulate air sulfur deposition over East China and sulfur deposition onto lands of different use types in East China. The wet scavenging coefficients were parameterized in terms of precipitation rate, and the effect of sub-grid processes due to inhomogeneous land use on dry deposition velocity was also included. Results of the field measurements showed that over 83% of the total sulfur deposition at the Yingtan site was dry deposition, while at the Changshu site42% was dry deposition. The total sulfur deposition was much larger at the Yingtan site than at the Changshu site, which suggested contrasting air pollution and meteorological situations. The modeling results revealed that the total annual sulfur deposition over East China was 1.88 Mt, of which 72.8% was deposited onto farmland, and dry deposition accounted for 43% of the total sulfur deposited. The modeling results were generally in agreement with those from the observations.Overall, this study suggested that atmospheric sulfur deposition played an important role in the soil sulfur balance, which could have a significant effect on agricultural ecosystems in the study region.