Although palaeoflood research has only been practiced for 50 years,it is important for forecasting possibility and severity of floods.Because Holocene palaeoflood study can supply data for frequency analysis of floods,palaeoflood study develops fast.Combining some related researches,this paper described the progress of research on palaeofloods in three aspects of identification of palaeofloods,characteristic of slackwater deposits and hydrological calculation.Although rapid advances have been achieved in palaeoflood study with numerous quantitative results,there are still some problems.The study areas have been mostly on some streams of the Yangtze River and Yellow River,and the study should be developed the other streams;More studies should be strengthened on high-resolution of palaeoflood records;There is no enough study on the relationship between palaeoflood occurrence and climate change.The reason of flood event should be paid much attention to;It is difficult to construct complete palaeoflood sequence in a river basin.