Succinic acid is one of the key intermediates in the tricarboxylic acid cycle (TCA)and has huge potentials in biopolymer, food, medicine applications. This article reviews recent research progress in the production of succinic acid by microbial fermentation, including discovery and screening of the succinic-acid-producing microbes, the progress of genetic engineering strategy and metabolic engineering technology for construction of succinic acid-producing strains, and fermentation process control and optimization. Finally, we discussed the limitation of current progress and proposed the future research needs for microbial production of succinic acid.