As an important class of heterocyclic scaffolds, 2-imidazolines and their derivatives are an important class of molecules.Based on their good reactivity and biological activity, they are widely used in the field of drugs and pharmaceuticals, natural product chemistry, synthetic organic chemistry, coordination chemistry, anticorrosion and homogeneous catalysis.Significant effort has been devoted to the synthesis and applications of such compounds.This review provides a summary of recently developed methods for the preparation of 2-imidazolines, and their latest developments of applications.