The present paper determined the As concentration in shell sand of the shell ridge islands by hydride generation atomic fluorescence spectrometry, studied the distribution of As in shell sand of the shell ridge islands, analysed the correlations of As with other nutrient elements, and discussed the probably influencing factors affecting the As concentration and distribution in shell sand. The results showed that the range of the arsenic concentration in shell sand is between 0.78 and 8.76 mg·kg-1, the average concentration is 3.11 mg·kg-1, and this indicated that the As contamination of the shell ridge island is in clean level. The As concentration of the shell sand has a increasing trend followed by the increase with profile depth or the decrease with the particle size, and the difference in As concentrations in shell sand of different particle sizes reached the significant level (p≤0.05). The As concentration in shell sand has a very significant positive correlation with the concentrations of Cu, Zn and Mn as well as the TP and TK, whereas the correlations between As and TN or Fe are not significant. The pollutant of As in the shell sand mainly comes from the absorption and fixation by shell sand from the environment but not the accumulation of the shell organism during their growing up.