**1. Introduction**

Cucumber (*Cucumis sativus* L.) belongs to *Cucumis* genus in *Cucurbitaceae* family and is an economically important fruit vegetable. There are three wild or semi-wild varieties of cucumber: *C. sativus* L. var. hardwickii, *C. sativus* L. var. sikkimensis, *C. sativus* L. var. xishuangbannanesis. Cucumber is indigenous to India and likely originated from the foothills of the Himalayan Mountain [1, 2]. Cucumber was cultivated ~3000 years ago in India, and it seems to spread rapidly to Western Asia, and then to Southern Europe [2]. Cucumber was introduced respectively to North China through the Silk Route and to South China from Burma and India-China border, and subsequently spread to East Asia [2]. Genome variation analysis showed cucumber core germplasms were divided into four geographic groups including India, Eurasia, East Asia, and Xishuangbanna [3]. Nowadays, cucumber is widely cultivated in temperate and tropical regions throughout the world [4]. The total production of cucumber was 87,805,086 tons worldwide, and Asia was the largest producer accounting for 84.9% of the world's total production in 2019 (www.fao. org/faostat/en/). With abundant water, nutrients and phytochemical composition, cucumber has versatile uses in culinary, therapeutic and cosmetic purposes [5, 6]. Cucumber has multiple advantages such as diploid, small genome, short life cycle and self-compatible mating system, so it is suitable for genetic studies. Moreover, cucumber has been identified as a model plant for studying sex determination and plant vascular biology [7]. Consequently, numerous studies have been conducted to discover the miracle of cucumber. The book will cover the extensive benefits, production and market, cultivation and management, pests and diseases, breeding progress of cucumber.
