Abstract: Half century has passed since China started oil and gas exploration in the South Yellow Sea Basin. It remains as the only large sedimentary basin without industrial oil flow discoveries so far in China offshore areas. The article offers a brief overview of the South Yellow Sea Basin oil and gas exploration history, which is divided into two large exploration periods around 2005, marked by the shift of exploration target from the Cenozoic to the Mesozoic and Paleozoic, which included four stages of self-exploration, international cooperative exploration and research, national resources investigation program and new round of selection and evaluation of the national strategic petroleum target areas. We reviewed the research status respectively from four disciplines including the seismic stratigraphy, the sedimentary strata, tectonic evolution and evaluation of resource potential in the South Yellow Sea. It is believed that the stacked multi-stage basin and complex tectonic evolution remain as the key for further exploration. Further study targets are proposed in this paper for breakthrough of oil and gas exploration in this region.