Potassium (K) is one of the quality elements of tobacco leaves. How to effectively increase K content in tobacco leaves has always been one of the focuses of tobacco study in China. In this study, the tobacco cultivar of Yunyan 97 and a sandy soil at Xiangyang and a clayey soil at Hanting of Xuancheng, southern Anhui Province were taken as experimental materials to investigate the effects of high K fertilizer rates and fertilization methods on K contents in tobacco leaves and the relationship between K contents in tobacco leaves and soil properties. Results showed that when K fertilizer was mixed evenly with plough layer soil, K contents in the tobacco leaves significantly increased as K fertilizer rate (0, 300, 600, 900, 1 200, 1 800, 2 400 mg/kg) increased at two sites, and K contents increased at a higher speed at first and then slowed down in quadratic polynomial curve. When K rate was below 1 200 mg/kg, K contents in tobacco leaves increased by 2.4 g/kg and 1.0 g/kg in sandy and clayey soils, respectively, with the increasement of K fertilizer per 100 mg/kg. A higher K application rate can increase the average K content in tobacco leaves to 44.0 g/kg in sandy soil, while only increase to 26.2 g/kg in clayey soil. The significant difference in the effect of K fertilizer on tobacco between the two texture soils was due to the different abilities of soil K fixation. The content of soil available K was linearly related to K content in tobacco leaves. The soil K-fixing rate was 71% at clayey soil, which was notably higher than that at sandy soil (25%). And this is the fundamental cause of the difference in K fertilizer performance between the two soils. With a K fertilizer rate equal to the conventional one (K₂O 25 kg/667 m²), concentrated application of N, P and K in the root zone significantly promoted the absorption of K by tobacco leaves, increased K content in tobacco leaves, and the performance of K fertilizer was better in sandy soil than that in clayey soil. The reason may be that root zone fertilization can significantly increase the content of available potassium in the root zone of tobacco leaves. The results above indicate that increasing K application rate and improving fertilization method can effectively increase K content in tobacco leaves in soils with weak K-fixing abilities.