Goos-H?nchen(GH) shift is a kind of abnormal optical phenomenon. When a beam of light is incident to a different refractive index medium surface, the light total internal reflection occurs at the planar interface. The points of incidence and reflection are not at the same place, or there exists a tiny lateral shift for reflected light. This phenomenon is called as GH shift. In this paper, a qualitative explanation and quantitative analysis for GH shift according to K. Artmann's stationary phase theory is presented. Related work including theoretical research results and experimental observations of GH shift on metallic interface, dielectric grating structure, metal-cladding structure, photonic crystal materials, chiral materials have been summarized. The GH shift research at different electromagnetic frequency bands especially in terahertz band is introduced. The two kinds of methods for measuring GH shift：direct measurement and interference measurement have been introduced. Finally, two examples of temperature sensing and concentration sensing are introduced to demonstrate the applications of GH shift.