Abstract: Polder is a land use form for the comprehensive field control in low-lying coastal areas, which is of great significance to regional agricultural development, flood prevention and disaster mitigation, ecological environmental protection etc. The formation and development of polder has a long history at home and abroad, Netherlands for example has also developed polder in a large scale. How to make polder continues to play an active role in the contemporary society has become an urgent problem, thus it is necessary to carry out an in-depth study. We analyzed the research findings since 1950s, and summarized the research data, methods and main conclusions from four aspects, including development, planning, flood control and ecological systems of polder. A few changes occurred during the research process, so we identified a new path for the current research, i.e. learning from ancient wisdom to push forward the planning of polder area, employing technical means to strengthen flood control and disaster reduction, constructing ecological civilization to facilitate polder transformation. The results show that polder used to be the study object for History and Hydraulics, but now it attracts attentions from multi-subject studies. The application of multi-disciplinary method will better promote the protection and utilization of polder. This study can provide reference for the development research of the polder.