Abstract: Traditional Chinese medicine(TCM)is a unique traditional culture and industry in China and excellent Chinese medicinal materials are strategic resources related to people's livelihood. In recent years, with the increasing demand for Chinese medicinal materials at home and abroad, the types and areas of artificially cultivated medicinal plants have increased greatly. Due to the limitations of cultivated land, planting conditions and authenticity, serious continuous cropping obstacles commonly exist in the intensive cultivation of medicinal plants, especially in the medicinal plants with tuberous roots as medicine. At present, continuous cropping obstacle has become the key factor restricting the yield and quality of medicinal materials, and seriously hindered the standardized planting and industrialization development of medicinal materials. In this review, the latest research progresses on the damage, formation mechanism and control measures of continuous cropping obstacles of medicinal plants were summarized and it was pointed out that the continuous cropping obstacle problem was mainly the result of combined effect of plant - soil - microbial. The causes of continuous cropping obstacles of medicinal plants were analyzed, which mainly included three aspects, namely, soil nutrient deficiency and imbalance, allelopathic autotoxicity and the aggravation of soil-borne diseases caused by destruction of rhizosphere microecology. The control measures of continuous cropping obstacles were put forward, including selection of excellent strains, soil sterilization, establishment of reasonable farming system, application of microbial fertilizer. The direction and key points of future research were discussed in order to provide scientific references for the cultivation and management of medicinal plants to overcome continuous cropping obstacles.