**Abstract**

Recent advances in genome technology revealed various single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs), the most common form of DNA sequence variation between alleles, in several plant species. The discovery and application of SNPs increased our knowledge about genetic diversity and a better understanding on crop improvement. Natural breeding process which takes an agelong time during collecting, cultivating, and domestication has been accelerated by detecting dozens of SNPs on various species using advanced biotechnological techniques such as next-generation sequencing. This will result in the improvement of economically important traits. Therefore, we would like to focus on the discovery, current technologies, and applications of SNPs in breeding. The chapter covers the following topics: (1) introduction, (2) application of SNPs, (3) techniques to detect SNPs, (4) importance of SNPs for crop improvement, and (5) conclusion.

**Keywords:** SNPs, SNP identification, plant evolution, crop improvement
