Abstract: America's shale gas breakthrough，continues to cause shale gas development boom and strategic layout of the countries with abundant shale gas，and sets off an unprecedented “shale gas revolution" in the world. It is of great significance for improving energy structure and guaranteeing energy security to speed up the exploration and development of abundant shale gas resources in our country. On the basis of a large number of literature investigation，this paper introduces the exploration and development history and present situation of shale gas in our country，and analyzes the enlightenment from North American prosperous shale gas to our country. The researches about shale gas start late in our country. China basitally completes the mission of the third stag(2010一2015): industrialization production test of marine shale gas，and the exploration&evaluation of transitional and continental shale gas，after the first stage (before 2005): analysis of shale gas in North America as it develops，and the second stage(2005-2010): the geology research，"dessert" area selection，appraisal well drilling and preparation for exploration & development of shale gas. The fourth stage (after 2015) about exploitation on a large scale in marine shale gas and industrial mining experiment in transitional and continental shale gas is ongoing. Chinese proved geological reserves of shale gas is 5 441.29 ×10⁸ m³ at present. Three industrial production demonstration area of marine shale gas are established in Fuling，Weiyuan, Changning一Zhaotong，one production demonstration area of continental shale gas in Yanchang and Fushun一Yongchuan cooperative development region.  China's shale gas production is 12. 5 × 10⁸ m³ in 2014 which produced from Wufeng一Longmaxi Formation marine shale in Sichuan basin，and becomes the third largest country in shale gas production second only to America and Canada.  What's more，shale gas has been found in multiple series of strata in south china marine shale，but need to evaluation further.  Transitional shale gas shows a certain degree of exploration prospects.  Continental shale gas is not form a stable industrial production，whose exploration prospects is not clear.  Although the successful experience of North American
shale gas is worthy of reference，but shale gas in China has its own characteristics.  In order to achieve the shale gas development on a large scale，there still has a lot of things to do. First of all，technical difficulties of deep shale gas exploration&development must he overcome，and the breakthrough must he
made in the core technology and equipment.  In addition，the government's policy support and stringent environmental regulation is also crucial to the development of shale gas industry in China.

Key words: shale gas, exploration &, development, status, history, enlightenment