Oxazole ring containing nitrogen and oxygen atoms is a quite important five-membered heterocycle. This unique structural nature of oxazole moiety endows its derivatives to exhibit various bioactivities and some special properties, and thus results in their wide potential application in medicinal and agrochemical field as well as materials sciences and so on. Therefore the synthetic methods of oxazole ring have been receiving increasing attention, and a large amount of effort has been directed towards its syntheses. The progress is extremely rapid. Based our researches on azole compounds and referring other works from literatures in recent 5 years, this review summarizes the recent advances in the syntheses of oxazole rings, including oxazole, oxazoline, oxazolidone and the fused oxazole ones.

Key words: oxazole, oxazoline, oxazolidone, fused oxazole, synthesis, cyclization