Organic nitrogen is a quantitatively important component in the atmospheric deposition. These organic forms of nitrogen both in wet and dry deposition can be divided into three types: oxidized, reduced and biological/particulate atmospheric organic nitrogen. They could be released directly from both natural and anthropogenic sources including terrestrial vegetation, soils,  oceans, fertilizers, biomass burning and fossil-fuel combustion, and also produced through atmospheric reactions between NOx  and volatile organic carbons. Atmospheric organic nitrogen may not only accelerate primary productivity and the corresponding enhanced anthropogenic CO₂ uptake, but also affect ecosystem composition or function by its substantive deposition to the oceans. This paper has reviewed the results in the recent studies of organic nitrogen in atmospheric deposition. The compiled data set shows that organic nitrogen contributes up to 39.6%±14.7% of the total aerosol nitrogen. In rainwater from continental locations, 30.2%±15.0% of the dissolved nitrogen is present in organic forms, while in remote marine rains, organic nitrogen makes up 62.8%±3.3% of the total nitrogen in rain samples. Atmospheric nitrogen flux to the world's ocean would be one third more as compared to the previous estimation (only inorganic nitrogen) if organic nitrogen was considered. The studies of organic nitrogen in the atmospheric deposition would be helpful for evaluating the roles of organic nitrogen in the global atmospheric nitrogen budget and marine ecosystem on short or long time scale.