Potash salt is one of key scarce strategic resources. Searching for large scale of potash salt deposit is one big problerm which Chinese academic community faces. Many new discoveries of world potash deposit have been made in recent ten years, which provide abundant practical information and complement the potash metallogenic theory. Through the summary of  the potash forming characteristics at home and abroad, the paper studies the potash forming time, tectonic condition, paleogeographic condition, paleoclimate, basin location and salt source. Potash is mainly formed in Permian, Cretaceous, late Jurassic, Cambrian and Devonian. The combination of structure and environment helps to form large scale of evaporation. The climate cycle is related with crust activity. As the other ore deposit, the formation of potash ore also needs dry climate. Potash is the product of final stage in brine evolution, and therefore, it needs persistent drought climate. However, the climate condition is very complicated. Drought climate belt also occurs in humid climate stage, which is controlled by geomorphology. Potash ore can also form in local drought condition. Generally, potash forms in rock salt basin. However, the actual situation is very complicated. Some potash basin is coincided with rock salt basin, some is on one side of rock salt basin; and some are even in the outside of rock salt basin. Salt materials can be from three sources: marine source, terrigenous source and deep source.The paper gives an overview of the research status about the potash deposit forming conditions, which has great guiding significance for searching potash deposit in China. The paper also summarizes the three types of metallogenic models for potash deposit, including epicontinental metallogenic model, abnormal marine evaporation model and rift valley model. The three models are mainly different in material sources, in which the potash in epicontinental metallogenic model is from seawater; the potash in abnormal evaporation model is from nonmarine brine and the potash in rift valley model is mainly from deep material of volcanic activity.