The relationships between compression index Cc and physical parameters of soft soil have been studied by many researchers. However

a comprehensive summarization of all these empirical relationships is missing. Eight Empirical relationships of Cc with liquid limit

seven relationships of void ratio e0 and six relationships of natural water content wn from different regions in the world are summairized in this paper. It is found that these Cc-wn relationshps have very similair slopes (about 0.01). Therefore

a general relationship is proposed. The Cc-wn empirical relationships from different Chinese costal areas are compared

and some test data are also collected. It is shown that these Cc-wn relationships can be divided into two categories and their empirical relationships are presented repectively. Southern areas such as Guangzhou

Shenzhen have soils with smaller slope (about 0.008) which is close to the value of 0.01 of soils from foreign regions. Northern areas such as Tianjin

Shanghai

Lianyungang have soils with much larger slope (about 0.02). This difference may relate to the soil structure. This article also evaluates the influence of the soil disturbance on the Cc-wn statistical relationship and discusses the applicability of compression ratio CR with wn relationship provided by Lambe and Whitman for soft soils.