The minimum data set (MDS) is the least indicators collection that can reflect the information of total soil quality well, which can effectively improve the real-time characteristic and application of soil quality assessment. In order to characterize the soil quality of cultivated layer for slope farmland in southern red soil hilly area, the paper established the MDS for quality diagnosis of cultivated layer for slope farmland by cluster analysis (CA) and principal component analysis (PCA) respectively, and furthermore analyzed soil quality characteristics of cultivated layer adopting 3 different soil quality indices (SQI), including SQI-T (data from total soil indicators), SQI-CA (data from CA indicators) and SQI-PCA (data from PCA indicators). The results showed: 1) Soil quality of cultivated layer for slope farmland varied significantly among different red soil sites. The average cultivated layer thickness of 19.93±4.9 cm was in suitable level for crop growth, and the soil organic matter content of 17.43±8.71 g/kg and the soil total nitrogen content of 0.97±0.42 g/kg were in moderately barren level, but the soil nutrients of effective phosphorus of 26.1±22.22 mg/kg and available potassium of 155.46±88.35 mg/kg were rich for crop growth. The soil pH value of 5.34±0.77 was faintly acidic. 2) The MDS on soil quality diagnosis of cultivated layer for red soil slope farmland included such indicators as cultivated layer thickness, soil bulk density, soil penetration resistance, soil organic substance, pH value and soil available phosphorus. The assessment results of soil quality of cultivated layer based on 3 different data sets are distinct greatly, the variation range and the mean of soil quality index were showed as SQI-T > SQI-CA > SQI-PCA and the variation coefficients presented as SQI-T < SQI-CA < SQI-PCA. Furthermore, the relevance and Nash efficiency coefficient between SQI-CA and SQI-T were higher than that between SQI-PCA and SQI-T, and the relative deviation coefficient and the average relative error between SQI-CA and SQI-T were lower than that between SQI-PCA and SQI-T, which illustrated that MDS-CA (MDS based on CA) was more appropriate than MDS-PCA (MDS based on PCA) to reflect the information of the total data set (TDS) for soil quality assessment of cultivated layer for red soil slope farmland. 3) From the perspective of soil and water conservation, fertilizer conservation and yield-increasing potential, the suitability thresholds of those diagnostic parameters for cultivated layer of red soil slope farmland were indicated as follows: the cultivated layer thickness of ≥20.39 cm, the soil bulk density of 0.92-1.21 g/cm3, the soil penetration resistance of ≤1.21 kg/cm3, the soil organic matter content of ≥18.82 g/kg, the pH value of 5.04-5.38 and the effective phosphorus content of ≥28.83 mg/kg. Rational deep-loosening is one of the effective measures for reasonable cultivated layer construction. These results can provide some useful parameters not only for the soil quality recovery of the cultivated layer but also for the suitability regulation of the crop growth and the control of soil and water loss of slope farmland, which are also conducive to the sustainable utilization of the slope farmland resources in red soil hilly area. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]