As soybean is the most important economic and food crops in the world,soybean research has been paid more attention at all times,but soybean researches progressed slowly comparing with corn,rice and other crops.The emergence of DNA molecular marker technology in late 1980s greatly improved the efficiency of genetic breeding.Molecular markers applied in soybean genetics and breeding were summarized from the four aspects,i.e.,soybean genetic map construction,genetic diversity studies,genet-ic analysis of quantitative traits,and molecular marker-assisted breeding.