Submarine cable plays an important role in marine energy development, island economic development and national territorial security, etc. It is a necessary method to ensure the safe and reliable operation of submarine cable system by carrying out regular detection of its routing, embedding depth, fault and other information. In this paper, five kinds of detection methods are briefly expounded, include the artificial outlook, patrol, ocean "fish" and so on, and their advantages and disadvantages are analyzed. Then from the angle of detection technology, the submarine cable detection technology based on the optical, electrical, acoustic, magnetism, and information fusion principle are introduced in detail, and each detection technology’s advantages and limitations are discussed based on its development and application status at home and abroad. At last, the problems and the development trend of the submarine cable detection technology is pointed out in this paper.