The solution-phase synthesis of hollow micro- and nanostructures by Using Suitable templates such as hard templates, soft templates and reactive templates has attracted considerable attention in recent years. This paper is focused oil the template synthesis of inorganic hollow structures with tailored size, morphology, and architecture, with emphasis oil the templating strategies recently developed in our lab for the facile solution-phase synthesis of novel inorganic hollow structures. The formation mechanisms of the hollow structures via different kinds of templates are discussed in depth to show the general concepts for the preparation processes. The properties and applications of hollow structures are briefly described, demonstrating the promising and broad application fields of hollow materials. (C) 2009 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.