Recent progress in the application of satellite altimetry from Seasat and GEOS 3 to the observation of the oceanic mesoscale variability and general circulation is reviewed. The lack of accurate geoid models has been the major obstacle in the study of the general ocean circulation from altimetry. The use of geoid‐independent methods that utilize the temporal differences in altimetric measurements taken at fixed locations, however, has made significant contributions to our knowledge of the mesoscale variability of the ocean. The mesoscale energies of the sea surface height and geostrophic current have been mapped on a global basis. Their distributions in wave number space have also been analyzed. Because of many of the deficiencies of existing altimeter data (short duration, inadequate orbit, poor accuracy, etc.) most of these results describe only a small portion of the frequency‐wave number spectrum of the variability, but they have nonetheless demonstrated the great value of an optimally designed altimetric mission in advancing our knowledge of the global mesoscale variability. The current technology allows satellite altimetry to detect oceanic variability at periods from a few days to 3–5 years, and wavelengths from 50 to 10,000 km. Determining the time‐averaged general ocean circulation from altimetry is more problematic because an accurate geoid is indispensable. The currently available global geoid models have useful accuracies only at wavelengths greater than about 7000 km. There have been several attempts at mapping the global ocean circulation at those scales using existing altimeter data and geoids. When these results are compared with hydrographic surveys, some qualitative agreement can be observed, but the quantitative differences are mostly inconclusive because of the geoid and orbit errors. It has been suggested, however, that an altimetric mission that is optimally designed with the current technology, when complemented by a state‐of‐the‐art gravimetric mission to map the earth's gravity field, is able to determine the ocean circulation quantitatively at scales from the ocean basin to about 200 km.