Azaindoles belong to a kind of very important heterocycles, which play a role in material science and drug design and synthesis. Since azaindoles have the different molecular structure compared to indole, many kinds of indole syntheses don’t work so efficiently. Recently, the development of organometallic chemistry has supported the azaindole synthesis with more kinds of starting material and more powerful ways to build up the cyclic structure of azaindoles, so it has made the new possibilities to synthesize azaindoles. We have surveyed the development of azaindole synthesis recently. Several ways for the azaindole synthesis, such as Bartoli synthesis, Fischer indole synthesis, organolithium methods, transition-metal mediated methods and so on, have been introduced. This review summarized the very useful methods to synthesize many kinds of azaindoles (4-azaindole, 5-azaindole, 6-azaindole and 7-azaindole), that will be helpful for the application of azaindole compounds in material science and pharmaceutical synthetic chemistry. Contents 1 Introduction
2 Bartoli synthesis
3 Fischer indole synthesis
4 Organolithium methods
5 Transition-metal mediated methods
5.1 From alkynes to azaindoles
5.2 From alkenes to azaindoles catalyzed by Pd
5.3 From aldehydes, ketones or enol ethers to azaindoles
6 Other ways
7 Conclusion