Abstract: Shale oil is of strategic significance for ensuring national energy security. However, the shale oil layer in China is mainly of continental origin, deeply buried and highly heterogeneous, which has directly affected the overall development benefits of shale oil. The research on the heterogeneity of shale oil layer was sorted out and summarized, and research content and main control factors of the heterogeneity of shale oil layer were clarified. The progress of heterogeneity evaluation methods was defined, and the future development direction was expounded. The results showed that the continental shale oil layer in China exhibited obvious strong heterogeneity in five aspects, that is petrofacies, reservoir, oil content, mobility and compressibility, which was controlled by three main controlling factors, that is sedimentation and environment, metagenic, diagenesis and, tectonic process. At present, the main methods for evaluating the heterogeneity of shale oil layers include petrophysical, experimental characterization, geophysical method evaluation, and numerical simulation method prediction. With the continuous deepening of shale oil exploration and development, the research on the heterogeneity of mud shale will be moving towards multi-scale integrated characterization, dynamic evolution mechanism analysis, and intelligent prediction in the future. The research contents and achievements above could provide references and lessons for the exploration and development of shale oil in our country.