Zingiber corallinum Hance is a civil common drug in minority area of China and has great potential medical value.This artile reviews the research and development progress in chemical composition and volatile oil of Zingiber corallinum Hance since 2003 and points out that the future research direction is to deeply study the chemical compositions of non-volatile oil of Zingiber corallinum Hance to search useful active substances and to develop their new medicinal value.