Abstract:As a kind of extremely imperative ligand molecules, complexes containing the imidazolyl and its derivatives, can form host-guest compound with a considerable number of host metallic ions by different coordination modes. Simultaneously, these compound show extensive application prospect in many fields, such as ion recognition, fluorescent material, drug design, magnetic material, self-assembly, gas adsorption and catalyst exploitation. The present review mainly focused on the research progress of complexes containing the imidazolyl and its derivatives during, with details regarding with the synthetic methods and applications of novel compounds, proposing the prospects for future development trend.