Abstract: The urban wastewater treatment process is highly nonlinear and experiences serious interference from a range of sources, including inflow flux, input components, contamination loads, wastewater temperature, weather variations, and microbial physiological reaction characteristics. In addition, since the microbial survival rules of biochemical reactions are complex and the component reaction characteristics of the wastewater treatment process are unclear, it is still a challenging task to model the urban wastewater treatment process. With respect to modeling methods of the urban wastewater treatment process, our main objective is to review current achievements, especially for mathematical, intelligent, and hybrid models. We also identify the issues that must be resolved in the future.