National inventory of soil and groundwater contamination is an efficient decision-making tool to identify and manage existing or potential contaminated sources and contaminants. It has been used as basic data for establishing the scheme of regulations and remediation plans of soil and groundwater contamination in developed countries. This study examined classification of existing or potential sources of soil and groundwater contamination from various countries to suggest implications that required for development of classification of soil and groundwater contamination sources in Korea. Each country has provided a list of currently or potentially contaminating activities or landuses and identified some of the potential contaminants related to those contamination sources. Consideration of sources which had not been mentioned or regarded as contamination sources before was suggested for Korea situation. In addition, it is necessary to compile a list of existing data and information as much as possible to develop a detailed and practical list of various contamination sources.