Abstract: Photorefractive spatial solitons are becoming an important field in nonlinear optics, and are the focus of considerable research due to their interesting features of formation at very low power，fast response and large nonlinearity, besides potential applications in all-optical switching, optical waveguides, optical interconnects etc. We describe the physical mechanism of the formation of photorefractive spatial solitons, and review the history and current status of research in this field.