Radiation mutagenesis breeding has been widely used in crop genetics and breeding due to its short duration needed， high mutation rate and stable offspring traits. In the past 10 years， 18 varieties that play a vital role in rice production had been raised by using radiation mutagenesis indicating that the radiation mutagenesis could provide new germplasm resources for rice breeding. In this paper， rice mutants obtained by radiation mutagenesis， including stem mutants such as high stem， short stem， thick stem， twist stem， etc.； leaf mutants such as leaf color， leaf length， striped leaf， spotted leaf， etc.； panicle mutants such as panicle length， panicle color， grain size， etc.； mutants related to physiological traits such as premature senility， sterility， late maturity， without heading， etc. were reviewed. Also， the mapping， cloning and action mechanism of yield related mutants， stem related mutants， leaf shape related mutants， panicle related mutants， resistance related mutants and rice quality mutants were systematically introduced. In addition， seeds of the rice cultivar Zhejing 99 were mutated by radiation mutagenesis， and we obtained many types of mutants. The phenotypic analysis of these mutants laid a foundation for the cloning of rice genes and provided novel germplasm resources for rice breeding.