Abstract: Landslide is a common global geologic disaster, and also one of the major geologic disasters in China. Landslides often incur a lot of casualties and enormous economic loss. Model test is one of the most effective ways on studying landslide mechanisms, which has irreplaceable advantage: it can reproduce the whole process of landslide; it can be observed with the characteristics of the landslide deformation and failure process; the inputs and outputs of the tests can be quantitatively and precisely measured; it's easy to control the condition and factors of model test. In recent years, a lot of research results on landslides using model test have been achieved. However, the existing research are relatively scattered and have not be systematically summarized. This paper aims to review the development of landslide model test systematically with emphases on influence factors of landslide(loading, rainfall, reservoir water level and earthquake et al.) and the measurement technologies, and provide prospect for the study on landslide model test in the future. The study may lay the foundation for the subsequent related work.