Abstract Nonlinear Fourier transform (NFT), based on the nonlinear Schrödinger equation, is implemented for the description of soliton propagation, and in particular focused on propagation of high-order solitons. In nonlinear frequency domain, a high-order soliton has multiple eigenvalues depending on the soliton amplitude and pulse-width. During the propagation along the standard single mode fiber (SSMF), their eigenvalues remain constant, while the corresponding discrete spectrum rotates along with the SSMF transmission. Consequently, we can distinguish the soliton order based on its eigenvalues. Meanwhile, the discrete spectrum rotation period is consistent with the temporal evolution period of the high-order solitons. The discrete spectrum contains nearly 99.99% energy of a soliton pulse. After inverse-NFT on discrete spectrum, soliton pulse can be reconstructed, illustrating that the eigenvalues can be used to characterize soliton pulse with good accuracy. This work shows that soliton characteristics can be well described in the nonlinear frequency domain. Moreover, as a significant supplement to the existing means of characterizing soliton pulses, NFT is expected to be another fundamental optical processing method besides an oscilloscope (measuring pulse time domain information) and a spectrometer (measuring pulse frequency domain information).