Abstract: The air pollutant emission inventory can not only provide the basic information of air pollu⁃tant emission sources to facilitate the decision-making of air pollution prevention and control, but alsoprovide essential data for air quality model simulation. The accuracy of emission inventory greatly affectsthe effectiveness of air pollution control decisions and the accuracy of model modeling, and therefore anaccurate air pollutant emission inventory is very important to the prevention and control of air pollution.This paper summarizes the research status of the emission inventory of anthropogenic air pollutants inChina, including the compilation method of anthropogenic air pollutants emission inventory, the re⁃search status of emission inventory at different scales and emission inventory assessment method, and atthe same time puts forward the problems existing in the study of emission list. Based on the above infor⁃mation, combined with the current control needs of " reduction of pollution and carbon emissions" , thispaper looks forward to the research direction of the emission inventory of anthropogenic air pollutants inChina, such as combining the air pollutant emission inventory with the greenhouse gas emission inven⁃tory, formulating a unified policy for reducing pollution and carbon, establishing a real-time updatedemission factor library, standardizing the preparation system of emission inventory, and building a moreaccurate national air pollutant emission inventory by integrating the refined emission inventory of variousregions, etc.