Precisely geospatial information of irrigation is essential for improving agricultural production and climate change researches,while remote sensing has been a effective way for this. The objective of this paper was summarizing relevant studies for the guidance of future work on mapping irrigation by satelite images. This paper grouped the studies in recent 20 years,and concluded them from the aspects of coverage,data resources,products,and especially features and algorithms for classification. Firstly,climate,production mode and relevant installation were indispensable references for irrigated cropland extraction. Differences of water content and growth conditions which irrigation leaded were the dominant basis. Introducing of time-series data or more features enriched information for classification. Secondly,various algorithms have been used in irrigation mapping researches,but most of them were in local scales. The diversity of regional conditions and data collection problem resulted in the difficulty on generalizing the obtained rules,so as to few regional irrigation maps with moderate resolution and updated messages,as while as the dependence of global products on spatial allocation models. Briefly,abundant satellite data and automatic classification algorithm have been prepared,for the future sake of regional or global application on dynamic monitoring and management of irrigation,more studies were needed on integrating existing remote sensing and spatial data,extending features and optimizing algorithms.