Abstract: There are abundant resources of traditional Chinese medicine in China, and it is found that the effective components of traditional Chinese medicine contain functional groups that are easy to coordinate with metal ions, such as amino, carboxyl and hydroxyl, which can complex with transition metal ions to derive new compounds. These traditional Chinese medicine metal complexes often exhibit unique properties and functions compared with their corresponding monomers, providing a new path for new drug development. Based on the formation principle of metal complexes with traditional Chinese medicine and the common coordination metal ions, in this review, the effective components in traditional Chinese medicine are roughly divided into anthraquinone, alkaloid, flavone, coumarin, amino acids and polysaccharide compounds, so as to provide new ideas for the discovery of new traditional Chinese medicine, and provide scientific basis for the modernization and internationalization of traditional Chinese medicine.