Abstract: Status on remediation of contaminated sites in developed countries and regions, such as the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, Japan, and Taiwan, were reviewed in this paper, including legislations, pollutants of concern, technologies, source of remediation funds, verification of remediation. Then, the similarities and differences of the five aspects in these five countries and Taiwan with mainland China were compared. The results showed that China had made special legislation for soil pollution prevention and control, the number of contaminated sites is expected to be initially figured out after the detailed soil survey, and the gap with developed countries and regions has been significantly reduced. However, it is still facing the fact that government is mainly responsible for the remediation of historical sites, extensive technology prevails and lone time-consuming verification of remediation. The implementation of the "Soil Pollution Prevention Law" should be taken as an opportunity, combined with the implementation of accountability, effectiveness evaluation, damage compensation and other systems, to properly solve the problem of remediation funds, strictly control historical pollution risks, effectively prevent and control new pollution, build a long-term management mechanism for risk management and restoration of contaminated sites, and maximize environmental, economic and social benefits.

Key words: developed countries and regions, China, contaminated sites, remediation