Abstract: Stidy of wear as an important research area of trobology has gained more and moreatention. Up to now,numerious research results on wear have been published and enormous amountof wear data has been accumulated.Many wear models have been developed and many wearformulas based on those wear models have been proposed.However,research in the past tended tofocus on the details of a single mechanism under a given set of C onditions to minimize the effectfactors. Mechanistic interpretations and models proposed on the basis of such data have limitedvalidity. In the initial stage of 80's, the study of wear map appeared.It has been shown that theabove situation can be efficiently changed through this approach.From a simple wear map,we canfirstly find that how the wear modes are classified,and what kind of characteristics each wear modehas;secondly,we can find that the types of parameters which control the generating condition ofeach wear mode;finally,we will possibly obtain the information on how to improve the wearresistance of materials,which may help us to make the correct selection of the mating materials,enviromental conditions and dynamic operating conditions, etc. Thus,it can be said that the studyof wear map possesses the characteristics of more systematic,deeper and more applicable than thatof the previous study of wear.For speeding up the development of wear map study,the authorssummarized and re viewed the past of wear map study. Several wear maps and their functions,making processes were introduced as examples. The future development tendency of wear map studywas also discussed preliminarily in the paper.The establishment of classifing standards of wear modeand of multiple dimension wear maps may be the focal point of future study of wear map.