Let d ≥ 1 be an integer and r = (r 0 , . . . , r d−1 ) ∈ R d . The shift radix system τr : Z d → Z d is defined by τr(z) = (z 1 , . . . , z d−1 , − rz ) t (z = (z 0 , . . . , z d−1 ) t ).τr has the finiteness property if each z ∈ Z d is eventually mapped to 0 under iterations of τr. In the present survey we summarize results on these nearly linear mappings. We discuss how these mappings are related to well-known numeration systems, to rotations with round-offs, and to a conjecture on periodic expansions w.r.t. Salem numbers. Moreover, we review the behavior of the orbits of points under iterations of τr with special emphasis on ultimately periodic orbits and on the finiteness property. We also describe a geometric theory related to shift radix systems. Contents 1. Introduction 2. The relation between shift radix systems and numeration systems 2.1. Shift radix systems and beta-expansions 2.2. Shift radix systems and canonical number systems 2.3. Digit expansions based on shift radix systems 3. Shift radix systems with periodic orbits: the sets D d and the Schur-Cohn region 3.1. The sets D d and their relations to the Schur-Cohn region 3.2. The Schur-Cohn region and its boundary 4. The boundary of D 2 and discretized rotations in R 2 4.1. The case of real roots 4.2. Complex roots and discretized rotations 4.3. A parameter associated with the golden ratio 4.4. Quadratic irrationals that give rise to rational rotations 4.5. Rational parameters and p-adic dynamics 4.6. Newer developments 5. The boundary of D d and periodic expansions w.r.t. Salem numbers 5.1. The case of real roots 5.2. The conjecture of Klaus Schmidt on Salem numbers 5.3. The expansion of 1 5.4. The heuristic model of Boyd for shift radix systems 6. Shift radix systems with finiteness property: the sets D (0) d 6.1. Algorithms to determine D (0) d 6.2. The finiteness property on the boundary of E d 7. The geometry of shift radix systems 7.1. SRS tiles 7.2. Tiling properties of SRS tiles 7.3. SRS tiles and their relations to beta-tiles and self-affine tiles 8. Variants of shift radix systems References