There have been continued effects to develop various types of chemical sensors according to the demands in many application fields such as safety, pollution, environment, medical engineering and food industries etc. In this review, the author intended to cover the general aspects of chemical sensors, including the history of the development, the classification, the sensing properties, and the types and application examples. And the future outlook of the chemical sensor technology, focusing on the advanced materials, high technology fusion, miniaturized intelligent system and ubiquitous sensor networks etc., has been described.