Atmospheric physics in numerical weather prediction model which predominantly determines the evolution of atmospheric processes is mainly described by physical parameterization. As a result, the development of physical parameterization has been a hot research issue in the area of numerical prediction for a long time. In this regard, the theoretical background and history of physical parameterization schemes for convection, microphysics, and planetary boundary layer, were reviewed in this study. It is suggested that the advance of physical parameterization for the model with high-resolution grid spaces should be considered as a principle issue for numerical model development in the future. Although the gird spaces in current operational numerical models generally decrease toward 10 km owing to the rapid development of high-performance computation, yet most of these schemes are designed for coarse grid spaces. Because of this kind of deficiency, the theoretical basis of these schemes inevitably faces controversy. Directions for development of physical parameterization were also suggested according to the trends of research in numerical prediction.