Hazelnut (Corylus) is one of the important nut crops and woody oil species with highly nutritional values. The genus Corylus is a member of the birch family (Betulaceae) in the order Fagales, and includes 13 species identified to date around the world. The European hazelnut (C. avellana L.) is the species with commercial cultivation in the European countries and the west states of the United States. The earliest European hazelnut breeding appeared in the 1900s and the major modern breeding programs started in the United States in 1960’s. After several decades of variety selection, many varieties were released with excellent characteristics, such as the varieties with highly stress resistance for the in-shell and the kernel markets, pollination varieties and ornamental varieties. In China, the first generation of hazelnut hybrid breeding performed in 1980’s, a total of 15 cultivars have been released and widely cultivated in twenty-odd provinces of China from dozens of candidate seedlings since 2000. The planting area is about 112,000 ha2 in China at present. The new generation hybrid breeding has been ongoing since 2006. New breeding projects and regional trials are mainly aiming to select cultivars with cold hardiness, branch shriveling resistance, drought resistance, heat resistance, and compatible pollinizers with high catkin retention. Objectively speaking, the achievements of European hazelnut breeding and the relative researches exceed the works in China for many years. Up to now, cross breeding is still a main method in hazelnut breeding. Therefore, to continuously introduce and efficiently utilize the special germplasm resources of European hazelnuts is an effective way to speed up the breeding work of hazelnut in China. Based on the research work and the international communication of hazelnut for many years, the authors reviewed a large number of domestic and foreign literatures. The cultivation status of European hazelnuts, the traits of C. avellana L. and their narrow-sense heritabilities, main targeted traits of European hazelnut varieties for kernel market and their evaluating standard, as well as the main characteristics of new advanced varieties released in the United States, Italy, Spain and Turkey were listed in the review. Thus, the precious nut trees, European hazelnuts, can be comprehensively illustrated to the domestic readers and researchers. Also in this review, the introduction history, scientific research, germplasm collection and protection, as well as the cross breeding utilization of European hazelnuts in China were summarized at the same time. Meanwhile, the problems in the introduction, regional trials and cross breeding utilization of European hazelnuts in China were discussed. Aiming to the problems above, constructive suggestions were proposed in terms of sustainable introduction, germplasm protection, cross breeding utilization, research communication and the funding application. Finally, the prospective of scientific research and industry development in China was summarized at the end of this review. The authors sincerely hope this review could provide some references in hazelnut breeding research and cultivation promotion in China.