As a group of environmental-friendly chemicals, galactomannan gums acquired from plant resources demonstrates some distinguishing features such as convenient preparation processes, unique physical-chemical characteristics and bio-chemical properties. Moreover, these attributes can be further improved through modification of chemical and bio-chemical approaches. Therefore, they are found more and more applications in many major industries. This paper introduced the research development in the field of galactomannan gums, including their structure analysis and characterization, chemical and enzymatic modification, as well as applications in some industries.