Drought as one of the most common natural disaster in the world, had caused serious influence on agricultural production in China. To accurately predict the drought affecting agricultural production, this paper reviews various kinds of drought indices which are widely used at home and abroad in recent years, including meteorological index, soil moisture index, crop physiological and ecological index, and other comprehensive monitoring index. Moreover, this paper also analyzes the advantage and disadvantage of different drought indices and their adaptabilities in agriculture, and discusses the important tasks of drought index research centering on crop drought in the future, in order to mitigate and prevent the negative impact of drought on agricultural and provide reference for the manage countermeasures.