Eleven selected soils from Denmark and Tanzania were treated with ammonium acetate (controls), EDTA, and dithionite‐EDTA (DE) to fractionate iron and (manganese) oxides. The amounts of cobalt adsorbed were determined from a 3 μM equilibrium cobalt solution, corresponding to the cobalt level in natural soil solutions using sodium nitrate (0.2 M) to suppress non‐specific adsorption, by the extracted soils as well as by two synthetic iron oxides.