Abstract: Chemical vapor deposition (CVD) is an effective way for the preparation of graphene with large area and high quality. In this review, the mechanism and characteristics of the four main preparation methods of graphene are briefly introduced, including micromechanical cleavage, chemical exfoliation, SiC epitaxial growth and CVD. The recent advances in the CVD growth of graphene and the related transfer techniques in terms of structure control, quality improvement and large area graphene synthesis were discussed. Other possible methods for the CVD growth of graphene were analyzed including the synthesis and nondestructive transfer of large area single crystalline graphene, graphene nanoribbons and graphene macrostructures.