Licorice is widely used in Chinese herbal compound prescriptions for its functions of nourishing qi, alleviating pain, tonifying spleen and stomach, eliminating phlegm, relieving coughing and harmonizing prescriptions.It contains more than 20 categories of triterpenoids and approximately 300 categories of flavonoids.In recent years many studies have reported that it possesses various pharmacological activities.In this paper ten different pharmacological activities of licorice, including antitumor, antimicrobial, antiviral, anti-inflammatory, immunoregulatory activities, inhibitory effect of diabetes, adrenal cortical hormone kind function, hepatoprotective effect, enhancing memory and neuroprotetive effect, were summarized.And we just hope this work can provide a basis for further studies concerned with exploring more functions, revealing active mechanisms and effective use of licorice.