Abstract: The parallel rendering algorithms is the basement of 3D terrain parallel rendering.From the viewpoint of data scheduling and function implementation,parallel rendering can be categorized into data-parallel and function–parallel.In terms of the way multiple rendering pipelines are organized,parallel rendering can be categorized into Sort-first,Sort-middle and Sort-last.The platform for the parallel rendering systems can be high-performance computers,computer clusters or multi-core computers.Data paging,data blocking,and parallel data scheduling mechanism based on data caching involved in 3D terrain are introduced.The parallel rendering algorithms involved in 3D terrain and the real systems based on distributed architecture and multi-thread computer are introduced.The key problems faced by 3D terrain rendering are discussed.The future development of 3D terrain parallel rendering is discussed and some conclusions are proposed.