Modern "wet wound healing" theory proves that the healing progress would be accelerated when the wound is in a humid environment. As a natural macromol. material extracted from brown algae, alginate has high moisture absorptivity, hydrogel formability and excellent biocompatibility. Alginate has been widely studied as a raw biomaterial to fabricate wound healing dressing. Up to date, the forms of alginate wound dressing mainly include fiber, sponge, hydrocolloid, hydrogel and so on. Generally, alginate fiber is the most widely clin.-applied among the four alginate-based wound healing dressings. Nonetheless, the alginate sponge, hydrocolloid, hydrogel have drawn increasingly attention both in basic and clin. researches due to their excellent performances in facilitating would healing under the principle of "wet wound healing". Meanwhile, a few relevant products have been clin. approved. In this paper, the research progress of the above alginate would healing dressings are reviewed, and their application prospects were further discussed.