The aim of this study is to look into the didactical background for introducing the concept of multiplication and teaching multiplication facts in elementary school mathematics and offer suggestions to improve teaching multiplication in the future. In order to attain these purposes, this study deduced and examined concepts of multiplication, situations involving multiplication, didactical models for multiplication and multiplication strategies based on key ideas with respect to the didactical background on teaching multiplication through a theoretical consideration regarding various studies on multiplication. Based on such examination, this study compared and analyzed textbooks used in the United States, Finland, the Netherlands, Germany and South Korea. In the light of such theoretical consideration and analytical results, this study provided implication for improving teaching multiplication in elementary schools in Korea as follows: diversifying equal groups situations, emphasizing multiplicative comparison situations, reconsidering Cartesian product situations for providing situations involving multiplication, balancing among the group model, array model and line model and transposing from material models to structured and formal ones in using didactical models for multiplication, emphasizing multiplication strategies and properties of multiplication and connecting learned facts and new facts with one another for teaching multiplication facts.