Abstract: The artificial control of acoustic waves is one of the core problems in acoustic research, and also the key technology in the fields of acoustic imaging, therapy, detection and communication. Compared with natural materials, acoustic metamaterials exhibit new physical effects, such as negative mass density, negative elastic modulus, negative refractive index, etc., and it can produce and realize a variety of novel acoustic phenomena and functions, such as acoustic stealth, acoustic subwavelength imaging, acoustic perfect absorption, etc., that showing great development potential. Based on the research of acoustic metamaterials in recent years, the development history, research content and practical application of acoustic metamaterials are described in this paper, which provides a reference for understanding the properties of acoustic metamaterials and expanding the related research.