Disease mapping can effectively show the phenomenon of spatial distribution of epidemic disease. The research of disease mapping has developed for a long time internationally, but cartographical academics in Taiwan seldom utilize it. In order to introduce this research area to Taiwanese cartographers, this article reviews the application of disease mapping outside of Taiwan from the nineteenth century to the early twentieth century to the early twentieth century. Moreover, it discusses the development of disease mapping in the modern international geography. Finally, it discusses the publication of disease atlases and textbooks in America and Great Britain. While in Taiwan many scholars use related research and methodologies in their specific fields, no article has attempted to put these uses of disease mapping in different fields together for review. This article traces the research and development of traditional disease mapping from 1975 within different disciplinary research and applications, and computerized disease mapping from 1985 to present. Furthermore, this article also explores the development of cancer disease mapping, which is published most in Taiwan. Recently, with the rapid development of geographic information systems, more and more people utilize computers to draw disease maps. Those distribution of disease and environmental factors which damage health can not only provide the information of the location of infectious diseases to understand the reasons for their spread, but also provide the hypotheses about the geographic environment according to the distribution of non-infectious disease. This article of disease mapping will assist to understand the relationship between environmental factors and the spread of disease, which will benefit Taiwan's disease prevention and control.