The gasoline direct engine has been widely used in light vehicles due to their high thermal efficiency, but it has disadvantage of particle matter (PM) emissions. Due to the potential carcinogenic, mass of PM and particle number of gasoline direction engine have been restricted in future emission standards. Faced to this newly issue, a large number of researches has been conducted in worldwide. It is found that particulate emissions from direct injection gasoline engine comes mainly from stratified combustion and un-premixed combustion of adhered fuel at piston surface, cylinder wall, valve surface, etc. Thus, the fuel/air mixture preparation strategy, fuel injection parameters, fuel physical-chemical properties, operating condition, environmental condition play vital influence on mass and number of PM. Moreover, driving cycle also does important effect on the testing results of the GDI engine. Based on above-mentioned background, this paper system documented the recently progress in this topic, and summarized the PM formation channels, influential factors and control strategy, PM emissions of gasoline-alcohol blend fuels, effect of driving cycle on PM emissions. At the end of this paper, prospection and future research direction are discussed.