The insulation aging status of high-voltage cross linked polyethylene (XLPE) power cables affects the reliability of power supply. Therefore,it is of great significance to study the detection and evaluation methods of cable insulation aging status. The domestic and international researchers have obtained certain research results in the detection and evaluation of the insulation aging state of high-voltage cables. It is summarized the commonly used offline and online detection methods and insulation state evaluation methods for high-voltage cables in this paper. The offline detection method has high accuracy,but it is not suitable for large-scale sampling detection for the service cables. The online detection method is subject to many environmental interference factors,but the existing interference always affects the detect results. The online detection method has certain detection limitations and lacks a large amount of test data support. There is no widely recognized evaluation standard and system as the evaluation method for the aging state of cable insulation. On the basis of summarizing the existing methods,it is ponied out the difficulties of cable insulation aging state evaluation in this paper,thus putting forward the research direction that can be improved in the future.