**Abstract**

Nanoporous gold (NPG) films have attracted increasing interest over the last ten years due to their unique properties of high surface area, high selectivity, and electrochemical activity along with enhanced electrical conductivity, and chemical stability. A variety of fabrication techniques to synthesize NPG thin films have been explored so far including dealloying, templating, sputtering, self-assembling, and electrodeposition. In this review, the progress in the synthetic techniques over the last ten years to prepare porous gold films has been discussed with emphasis given on the technique of electrodeposition. Such films have wide-ranging applications in the fields of drug delivery, energy storage, heterogeneous catalysis, and optical sensing.

**Keywords:** nanoporous gold, electrodeposition, surface area, potential, thin films
