Ingredients

Soybean

Citation Formats

General Reference

Food and Drink Atlas. "Soybean." Accessed August 30, 2026. https://food.interactiveatlas.org/ingredients/soybean.

APA Style

Food and Drink Atlas. (n.d.). Soybean. Retrieved August 30, 2026, from https://food.interactiveatlas.org/ingredients/soybean

BibTeX

@misc{foodanddrinkatlas-soybean,
  author = {Food and Drink Atlas},
  title = {Soybean},
  year = {2026},
  url = {https://food.interactiveatlas.org/ingredients/soybean},
  note = {Accessed August 30, 2026}
}

The soybean, also called soy, is a legume native to East Asia whose seeds are a major global source of protein and oil, and the basis of foods including tofu, soy sauce, miso, tempeh and natto. Archaeobotanical evidence points to the Yellow River basin of northern China as the leading candidate for where the wild soybean was first domesticated, though the dating has shifted substantially as evidence has accumulated: early estimates based on small-seeded specimens suggested domestication as much as nine thousand years ago, while a large comparative study of charred soybean remains across dozens of sites in China, Japan and Korea concluded that clearly domesticated, larger-seeded soybeans appear closer to fifty five hundred years ago, alongside the spread of early farming villages in the region.

Facts

Disputed

Earliest Documented Use, From (Year)

7000 BCE to 3500 BCE 1

Estimates have moved substantially with new evidence: early work on small, possibly wild-type seeds suggested domestication up to nine thousand years ago, while a later comparative study of charred remains from many sites concluded that clearly domesticated, larger-seeded soybeans appear around fifty five hundred years ago in the Yellow River basin. The range given spans both ends of this unsettled picture rather than asserting either alone.

Origin Region

The Yellow River basin, northern China 1

Cross-Tradition Connections