Abstract: In recent years, with the discovery of microsatellite markers in groundnut (Arachis hypogaea L.), the genetic diversity of this crop has been extensively investigated by analysis of simple sequence repeats (SSR). The approaches to developing groundnut microsatellite markers included development of SSR markers from genomic libraries constructed with small DNA fragments, development of expressed sequence tag (EST)-SSR markers from EST sequences generated from different cDNA libraries, identification of transferable SSR markers from other legume crops, development of new markers by combining other markers with SSR markers and generation of inter-SSR (ISSR) markers based on SSR motifs. Groundnut microsatellite markers have been applied in genetic diversity analysis, linkage map construction, fingerprinting analysis of cultivars and marker-assisted breeding. This review summarizes the progress in development of peanut SSR and the application of these markers.