Abstract: Salinity was one of the important adversities which could hinder crop growing development. This article summarized the salt stress influence on cotton growth, yield and quality, analyzed the self-regulatory and response mechanism of cotton to the salt adversity to reduce the damage, including osmotic adjustment, membrane lipid regulation, ion distribution and the molecular mechanism, and summed up the measures of alleviating salt injury, including salt tolerance breeding, cultivation management techniques and molecular breeding. Finally the future direction of cotton salt tolerance research was proposed: the combination of molecular mechanism and physiological mechanism; the combination of conventional cultivation measures and physical and chemical methods; the development and application of remote sensing monitoring system.