AP2/ERF （APETALA2/ethylene responsive factor） is one of the largest transcription factor （TF） families in plants， which contains at least one specific AP2 domains composed of 60-70 highly conserved amino acids. Depending on the number and sequence similarity of AP2 domains， this family can be classified into five subfamilies： AP2 （APETALA2）， DREB （dehydration-responsive element binding proteins）， ERF （ethylene-responsive factor）， RAV （related to AB13/VP）， and Soloist. AP2/ERF TFs regulate their expression by binding to target genes through YRG and RAYD conserved elements in the AP2 domain. At present， AP2/ERF TFs have become a hot candidate gene for studying plant stress resistance mechanisms and biosynthesis of active ingredients. More and more AP2/ERF families and their members have been reported. In this review， we summarized the latest research achievements on plant AP2/ERF family， including the structural characteristics and classification， and the research progress of AP2/ERF TFs involved in regulation of plant secondary metabolites synthesis， participation in biological and abiotic stress response was mainly introduced.Meanwhile， possible hot research topics and fields of AP2/ERF were proposed，which may provide a reference for further mining and utilization of such transcription factor genes for plant genetic improvement and germplasm innovation.