Soil compaction due to agricultural field traffic is a global problem, causing reduction in soil porosity with the limitation of water infiltration and root growth, affecting crop yields eventually. With the rapid development of cropland mechanization in China, soil compaction effect on sustainable development of agriculture has attracted great concerns. In order to provide a reference for further research, this paper reviewed the advances in understanding soil compaction process, introduced the methods of analyzing compression behavior, calculating pre-compression stress, the assumptions of mechanism, and discussed the functions of different modeling.