Abstract: [Summary] Benjamin Hobson, a British missionary, brought modern dental technologies and ideas into China in 1839. Since then, the development of dentoalveolar surgery in China can be divided into 6 stages, including 1 stop stage, 2 rapidly developing stages and 3 slowly developing stages. From 1911 to 1936, various dental schools were established, and different journals related to dentoalveolar surgery were founded. This was the first rapidly developing stage. From 1937 to 1949, the rapid development of dentoalveolar surgery in China was forced to slow down by 12 years of war. From 1950 to 1960, a number of monographs on dentoalveolar surgery were published, while related surgical methods were innovated. This was the second rapidly developing stage. From 1961 to 1978, lack of international communication led to big gap between the level of China's scientific research and the international one. The development of dentoalveolar surgery in China was at a stage of stagnation and even backward. From 1979 to 2004, dentoalveolar surgery became a branch of oral and maxillofacial surgery, without a separated, specialized department, and most researches focused on maxillofacial surgery; as a result, dentoalveolar surgery was relatively backward. After 2005, Department of Dentoalveolar Surgery was separated from the Department of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery in the major dental schools, with specialists concerning primarily on dentoalveolar surgery. Dentoalveolar Surgery Group was established. No matter in clinical technology, or in clinical research and basic research, dentoalveolar surgery in China has made rapid development and progress. This is the fastest developing stage.

Key words: Dentoalveolar surgery, Exodontia, Tooth transplantation, Tooth re-implantation, Pre-prosthodontic surgery