With the development of the times and the progress of science and technol., all walks of life are advancing rapidly,and the performance of traditional materials can no longer meet the needs of social development.With unique electronic structure, high catalytic activity, good chem. and thermal stability, non-toxic and easy to prepare, metal-free and other unique properties, graphitic carbon nitride(g-C_3N_4) has attracted wide attention of researchers, and it has a broad application prospect in catalysis, materials and other fields.In this paper, the basic properties and structure of g-C_3N_4 were reviewed, the preparation methods of g-C_3N_4 such as direct thermal polymerization, hard template method and soft template method were summarized, and the application of g-C_3N_4 was summarized and prospected from the aspects of catalysis and materials.