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Soil fungi are important for nutrient cycling and soil carbon storage. Although many factors affect fungal community structure, there are few studies that determine the effect of altitude on mountain slopes with invariable vegetation. In this study, we investigated the diversity and composition of soil fungal communities using Illumina MiSeq sequencing along an altitudinal gradient (700 to 1000 m) under Tilia amurensis trees, a tree species that is typical for northern slopes of Changbai Mountains, Jilin Province, China. The results showed that soil physicochemical factors were significantly affected by altitude. Basidiomycota and Mortierellomycota and Ascomycota were the dominant fungal phyla in the investigated soils, but their fractions varied with altitude. Alpha diversity increased significantly with altitude. Redundancy analysis revealed that soil factors explained 19.58% of the total variation in fungal community structure, whereas soil nutrients (in particular microbial biomass carbon and nitrogen, total phosphorus, and total nitrogen) and pH were the most important factors affecting the fungal communities. Overall, the changes in soil physicochemical properties with elevation are important in shaping the fungal diversity and composition of soil under T. amurensis trees in the investigated locations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]