Artificial reefs is one of the major means to realize sea ranching construction, marine ecology control and marine habitat restoration. The fish accumulating effect of artificial reefs depends on many factors such as reef materials, structure form, hydrodynamic features and reefs layout. This paper summarizes the advances in artificial reef engineering technology at home and abroad from the following aspects: the advantage and disadvantage of current artificial reef materials and the application potentials of new composite materials, major reef configurations and current designing methods, researches in reef hydrodynamic behaviors using hydrodynamic model test and numerical calculation methods, as well as methods of artificially induced flow field and reef layout. Then according to the present situation of artificial reefs in China, it points out the development trend and key research directions of artificial reefs design and application, in the wish to provide reference for artificial reefs construction and upgrading in China.