Copper is an important component from coin metal to electronic wire, integrated circuit, and to lithium battery. Copper oxides, mainly including $Cu_2O$ and CuO, are important semiconductors for the wide applications in solar cell, catalysis, lithium-ion battery, and sensor. Due to their low cost, low toxicity, and easy synthesis, copper oxides have received much research interest in recent year. Herein, we review the crystallization of copper oxides by designing various chemical reaction routes, for example, the synthesis of $Cu_2O$ by reduction route, the oxidation of copper to $Cu_2O$ or CuO, the chemical transformation of $Cu_2O$ to CuO, the chemical precipitation of CuO. In the designed reaction system, ligands, pH, inorganic ions, temperature were used to control both chemical reactions and the crystallization processes, which finally determined the phases, morphologies and sizes of copper oxides. Furthermore, copper oxides with different structures as electrode materials for lithium-ion batteries were also reviewed. This review presents a simple route to study the reaction-crystallization-performance relationship of Cu-based materials, which can be extended to other inorganic oxides.