Ionic liquids (ILs) have attracted much attention due to their unique properties and wide application potential in a variety of fields. The unusual properties of ILs provide numerous opportunities to design and prepare arious advanced materials, including highly efficient catalysts. In recent years, synthesis of different kinds of catalytic materials and their applications in chemical reactions have been studied extensively and have become a very interesting area. Herein, we present a review on the synthesis of catalytic materials using ILs as the media and/or functional components; the important and widely investigated topics are discussed, including mainly metal nanocatalysts/IL, functional IL/support, metals or metal oxides/IL/support, polymeric ILs (PILs) catalysts, and the performances of catalytic systems are highlighted. An outlook for this interesting area is also given at the end of the article.