As an important metal oxide, titanium dioxide has been widely investigated because of its unique surface, electronic, and photocatalytic properties, which make this material applicable in many areas of science and technology ranging from adsorption, catalysis and photocatalysis to biomedicine, environmental monitoring and cleanup, energy conversion and storage, etc. The properties of anatase TiO2 crystals are largely determined by external surfaces exposed. Since the breakthrough in synthesizing anatase TiO2 single crystals with a large percentage of highly reactive (0 0 1) facets in 2008, many unusual properties and applications of these (0 0 1) facets dominant in anatase TiO2 have been explored theoretically and experimentally, showing the industrial importance of this semiconductor material. Here we review the recent progress in synthesizing by various synthetic methods and photocatalytic activity TiO2 with exposed crystal facets with different morphologies. (C) 2014 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.