Since its invention in the nineteenth century, the long afterglow phosphors have been improved greatly. Up to 1990s, the best product is metal sulfide long afterglow phosphors. The aluminates long afterglow luminescent material was invented at the beginning of the nineties, its luminescent brightness, long afterglow characteristics and stability were obviously superior to the above sulfide series products. However these phosphors still have bad anti-moisture character, and they have strict restriction over the raw material's purity and form, besides, the production cost was higher, therefore it also can not satisfy the requirement of usage very well. In 1998, silicate long afterglow phosphors are synthesized successfully, which having excellent chemistry stability. What is more, the development of red long afterglow phosphors also made great progress. The brightness of the best red phosphors is six times than that of CaS, the decay time is about 6～8 hours. Base on lots of literatures and experiments, the development, type, preparation and mechanism of the long afterglow phosphors are studied, and the properties of phosphors are compared with them in this paper.