Salt is a major abiotic stressor in arid, semi-arid, and irrigated areas. The expansion of irrigated agriculture and the intensive use of water resources combined with high evaporation rates, leads to increasing salinity in soil and ground water. Soil salinity is rarely spatially uniform in field conditions. Numerous studies on plant physiological responses to salinity have been conducted using uniform conditions; however, only a few studies have investigated the physiology of plants grown in nonuniform root-zone salinity conditions. This paper summarizes domestic and international case studies of plant response to heterogeneous salinity. Mechanisms of plant growth under heterogeneous salinity were illustrated by plant shoot growth, root growth, water relations, photosynthesis, and ion regulation. Finally, research prospects for this domain are presented.