中药在世界特别是发展中国家需求量大，凭借其优越的性质例如价廉、副作用少，更好的文化可接受性和人体适应性，被广泛应用于医疗保健中。然而，复方中药由多种中药材组成，而每一种中药材中就含有几百甚至几千种化学成分。这些化学成分是如何相互作用的以及哪些又是其发挥药效的活性成分等问题是限制中药现代化和国际化的主要瓶颈。因此，建立有效、合理的方法评价和控制中药质量是必需的，随着分离和色谱技术的发展，质控方法也在不断完善。该综述从发展的角度概述了中药质量控制方法，从单指标成分到多指标成分分析，再到新兴的指纹图谱技术。总之，中药的分析和质量控制方法正朝着更有效、更全面的方向发展，以更好的反映中药的内在整体性质。

Traditional Chinese medicines (TCMs) are in great demand all over the world, especially in the developing world, for primary health care due to their superior merits such as low cost, minimal side effects, better cultural acceptability, and compatibility with humans. However, Chinese medicines consist of several herbs which may contain tens, hundreds, or even thous-aria-of constituents. How these constituents interact with each other, and what the special active ones are, may be the biggest bottleneck for the modernization and globalization of TCMs. Valid methods to evaluate the quality of TCMs are therefore essential and should be promoted and be developed further through advanced separation and chromatography techniques. This paper reviews the strategies used to control the quality of TCMs in a progressive perspective, from selecting single or several ingredients as the evaluation marker, to using different kinds of chromatography fingerprint methods. In summary, the analysis and quality control of TCMs are developing in a more effective and comprehensive manner to better address the inherent holistic nature of TCMs.