Bacterial promoter is a kind of regulators which are needed in bacterial gene expression and decide the strength and opportunity of gene expression. By insertion or deletion of promoters, we can change bacterial gene expression in order to study the growth and metabolic regulation. Promoters are also used to construct many kinds of vectors, so as to express heterologous genes. The study of promoter recognition and application is of great importance to realize the regulation of genes, gain products effectively and promote biological catalysis and metabolic engineering. This paper reviews bacterial promoters, and the methods for recognition of bacterial promoters as well as the study and application of bacterial promoters.