Abstract:The basic situation of monitoring the high precision time-varying gravity field and the application of earthquake prediction in Chinese mainland is reviewed. Since the Xingtai earthquake occurred in 1966,gravity field,especially the micro-gal level information of the time-varying gravity field,started to be applied to monitor the crustal movement and the process of strong earthquake in China. In general,gravity monitoring mainly adopts two methods:fixed-point with mobile re-measurement(Mobile Gravity)and fixed station with continuous observation(continuous gravity). The gravity monitoring history of China can be classified into three stages. Before 1998,gravity monitoring was mainly carried out along tectonic block boundaries,active faults or areas with strong historical earthquakes,usually with relative measurement and without absolute measurement. The dynamic variation characteristics of gravity before a series of earthquakes,such as Haicheng M7.2,Tangshan M7.8 and Lijiang M7.0,were summarized. But few earthquake cases were predicted successfully,except for Haicheng earthquake. After 1998,with the crustal movement network construction,the gravity field of the Chinese mainland has been monitored by the high-precision absolute gravity survey. The large-scale variation information before the Wenchuan M8.0 earthquake has been obtained. Effective opinions for the medium-term prediction of the Wenchuan earthquake are given. After 2010,taking the Crustal Movement Observation Network of China(CMONOC)as the base,several gravity networks such as the North China network and the North and South belt Gravity network were integrated and unified. Then a high-precision and complete gravity observation network over the China started to work. Several earthquakes with MS>6.0(such as Lushan MS7.0,Men yuan MS6.4,Hutubi MS6.2,etc.)were successfully predicted in that period. This is helpful for earthquake mechanism study and the medium-term earthquake prediction in China. With the improvement of measurement and long-term practice in gravity observation,a special interdisciplinary subject—“Seismic-gravimetry”,is generated preliminarily.