Information on land-use change and its effect on soil properties is important for sustainable land management practices. This study was conducted in Ganzer watershed Northwestern Ethiopia during 2019/20 to analyze land use change and evaluate the effect of land use on soil properties. The land use change was analyzed using Landsat satellite image in the years of 1988, 2002 and 2019. ArcGis10.3 and ERDAS imagine 2010 software were used to produce the land use/land cover change map using a supervised method. Four-land use types namely natural forest, plantation forest, cultivated and grazing lands having similar physiographic conditions were selected to determine the effect of land use type and soil depth on selected soil properties. A total of 24 composite soil samples were collected from the four land-use types at a depth of 0-20 and 20-40cm. All soil samples were analyzed following the standard protocols of laboratory analysis. The result showed that there was land use change in the watershed between 1988 to 2019 years were the cultivated and grazing land declined by 5.35% and 22.59% whereas settlement and forest (eucalyptus) increased by 7.94% and 20%, respectively. The analysis of selected soil parameters showed a significant (p<0.05 and p<0.01) difference among land use types. The higher content of clay, pH, organic carbon (OC), total nitrogen (TN), available phosphorus (Av.P), exchangeable bases and CEC and the lower value of BD, sand and silt fractions were recorded in the natural forest. In all land-use types, the sand, silt, TN, OC, Av.P and CEC decreased with soil depth whereas pH, clay, BD and exchangeable bases increased. From these result, it can be concluded that there is land use change in the study watershed in which the natural ecosystem mainly the natural forest transformed to different land use types, which have a negative effect on soil properties. Therefore, the study area needs immediate intervention and implementation of an appropriate land use systems with the amendment of the soil properties for a sustainable crop and forage production to feed the expanding population in the watershed. Keywords: Land-use/cover, Land use management, land use type, Soil depth, plantation forest