With the rapidly improvement of people's living standard and diversification life style, obtaining better visual quality has become a new goal of cataract surgery. Corneal astigmatism directly affects the selection of functional intraocular lens(IOL)in cataract surgery and the recovery of postoperative visual function. The types of corneal astigmatism are no longer limited to a single astigmatism value, but subdivided into anterior corneal astigmatism, posterior corneal astigmatism, total corneal astigmatism and corneal higher order astigmatism. The corresponding examination equipment and technology are also updated. According to the characteristics and application of different equipment, clinicians can select appropriate examination equipments to evaluate the preoperative corneal astigmatism, so as to provide reference for formulating more accurate refractive cataract surgery planning. It is important for the axis and power calculation of Toric IOL and the selection of multifocal IOL. This paper reviews the recent progress of corneal astigmatism examination before cataract surgery.