Abstract: OBJECTIVE To introduce chemical compositions and pharmacological actions of essential oil extracted from Curcuma for the past few years. METHODS To consult, integrate, analyze, and generalize this property from considerable quantities of reference documents concerning extraction methods, content determinations and pharmacological actions of volatile oil extracted from Curcuma. RESULTS The methods of oil extraction include steam distillation, supercritical fluid extraction, soxhlet extraction, microwave extraction. The methods of determination of the major contents of essential oil include TLC scanning, GC, GC-MS, and HPLC. The results showed that this essential oil had many positive effects such as antitumor, antithrombosis, antibacterial, immunity improving, and so on. CONCLUSION The quality of medicinal materials can be evaluated according to their major contents of essential oil, such as curcumol, β-elemene, and germacrone.