State-of-the-art x-ray light sources are nowadays based on large-scale electron accelerators, because the synchrotron radiation (SR) and x-ray free electron laser (XFEL) radiation generated by high-energy electron beams have many advantages over other alternatives in terms of the wavelength tunability, high brightness and flux, high coherence, flexible polarization states, and so on. This is the reason why SR and XFEL light sources have largely contributed to the evolution of x-ray science. This paper reviews the current status of such accelerator-based x-ray light source facilities and discusses their future perspectives.