The air pollutant emission inventory can not only provide the basic information of air pollutant emission sources to facilitate the decision-making of air pollution prevention and control, but also provide essential data for air quality model simulation. The accuracy of emission inventory greatly affects the effectiveness of air pollution control decisions and the accuracy of model modeling, and therefore an accurate 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 in China, including the compilation method of anthropogenic air pollutants emission inventory, the research status of emission inventory at different scales and emission inventory assessment method, and at the same time puts forward the problems existing in the study of emission list. Based on the above information, combined with the current control needs of "reduction of pollution and carbon emissions" , this paper looks forward to the research direction of the emission inventory of anthropogenic air pollutants in China, such as combining the air pollutant emission inventory with the greenhouse gas emission inventory, formulating a unified policy for reducing pollution and carbon, establishing a real-time updated emission factor library, standardizing the preparation system of emission inventory, and building a more accurate national air pollutant emission inventory by integrating the refined emission inventory of various regions, etc.