Abstract: In recent years, further exploration of the ocean facilitates the quick development of the technique of underwater acoustic communication (UAC). The technical level of UAC has been improved significantly, and new tendencies have emerged over the last couple of decades. Based on the latest published research papers and experimental results, we summarize the development history of UAC and anticipate its future tendency, especially in the following three cutting-edge aspects: single-carrier modulation, multi-carrier modulation, and error control coding. We further draw a preliminary conclusion on the upper performance limit of both research UAC results and commercial UAC systems. This conclusion has certain reference significance for evaluating the development level of the UAC technique.