Rice is one of the world’s most important food crops and has a very long history of cultivation in our country. Low-temperature damage to rice is one of the major causes for the decline in rice production. According to statistics， about 15 million hm² of rice is damaged by cold stress every year. Low-temperature harm to rice has become a global natural disaster. Authors of this paper mainly reviewed the physiological and biochemical traits， cold stress tolerant varieties， molecular mechanisms， and other indicators in the low-temperature environment of rice， and focused on the changes in the physiological and biochemical traits of rice in the state of cold stress. They also summarized the cold stress tolerant genes of rice and speculated on the future direction of rice breeding for cold tolerance.