Abstract: As a kind of biological polysaccharide, dextran contains many free hydroxyl groups on the main chain, which is convenient for modification and crosslinking.The hydrogels prepared by dextran exhibited excellent swelling property, biocompatibility and biodegradability.Dextran is widely applied in the fields of substance separation, drug delivery and tissue engineering.Kinds of common preparation methods of dextran-based hydrogels, including repeated freezing-thawing method, chemical crosslinking method, grafting modification method, and free radical polymerization, have been summarized, Besides, the applications of dextran-based hydrogels in recent years are reviewed and the future developments are discussed in present study.