Human papillomavirus (HPV) infection is one of the most common sexually transmitted infections in humans today. In 1972, HaraldZurHausen suggested that HPV could cause cervical cancer, for which he won the 2008 Medical Nobel Prize. In recent years, with the development of life sciences, the research on HPV has been intensified, here, we will review the HPV infection and its risk factors. HPV is a closed-loop, double-stranded DNA virus with no envelope, and is classified as a lactopolyhedrovirus. The viral length is about 7904 bp, containing 10 open reading frames (ORF), and is divided into the early region (E region), the late region (L region) and the upstream regulatory region (URR). The early region contains E1~E88 early genes, which are responsible for synthesizing viral proteins and regulating viral transcription, replication and transformation. Among them, E6 and E7 encode viral oncoproteins, which play a crucial role in cell transformation and maintenance of malignant phenotype of transformed tissues. The late region Ll and L2 are responsible for encoding the major and minor viral capsid proteins. The upstream regulatory region, also known as the viral long-term control region (LCR), is a non-coding region that mainly controls the transcription of the early and late transcription regions and the synthesis of viral particles. The HPV virus is strongly epitheliophilic, highly host and tissue specific, and replicates in the keratinocytes of the spinal and granular layers of cells by infecting the basal epithelial cells on the surface of human skin and mucous membranes, but does not enter the human blood circulation and does not cause viremia. 2, HPV typing According to the new classification method, Ll, E6 and E7 gene sequences with less than 90% homology with known HPV types were identified as a new type, 90%-98% homology was identified as subtypes, and variants with no more than 2% in coding sequences and 5% in non-coding sequences were identified as an intratypic variant. LR-HPV often causes benign lesions such as genital warts; HR-HPV is closely associated with severe CIN and cervical cancer, especially HPV16, and exhibits different geographical distribution characteristics and carcinogenicity, respectively.