Content of Cu, Zn, Fe, Mn, and Pb, their mobility and their specific binding to soil constituents of sandy and alluvial soils of Egypt were measured according to a sequential extraction scheme. The results showed that, total contents of these metals were higher in alluvial soils than in sandy desert soils. In contrast, no or less differences  were found in the mobile and easy mobilisable fractions of both soil types. At least the same amounts of heavy metals were available to plants. In sandy and alluvial soils most of Cu and Zn were bound to silicates. In the soils with high carbonate contents considerable part of these two elements were carbonatic bound and not easily available. In alluvial soils most of Cu, Zn and Pb were mainly organically bound, however, in sandy soils most Pb was measured in the residual fraction. For most of the studied metals, the relative distribution of the various chemical fractions in the alluvial soils descended as follows: organically bounded > oxide occluded >bound to lime > easily mobilisable > soluble + exchangeable, while in desert sandy soils it was in the following order: oxide occluded >