Abstract: As one of the most promising tools for landslide hazard prevention and mitigation, risk assessment has been a hot research topic in recent years. A relatively complete international landslide risk management system has been proposed. However, the domestic research in this field is rather weak and the key support technology system for landslide risk assessment has not been established. This paper investigates the key theory and method for landslide risk assessment, describes the theoretical framework for landslide risk analysis and management and reviews the recent advances in landslide susceptibility, hazard and risk assessment. Then, different approaches for assessing landslide susceptibility, runout, frequency, vulnerability and risk are examined and compared. At the end, this paper illustrates the key areas and cutting-edge scientific issues for landslide risk assessment and three prospects in this area are proposed.