With the rapid improvement of sequencing techniques, more and more genome annotations reveal the transposons are the important components of most genomes and present on almost all organisms. Among them, the Tc1/Mariner superfamily represents the most widespread DNA transposons. Until now, fourteen active Tc1/Mariner transposons (Minos, Mos1, etc.) have been identified and some highly active artificial transposons have been created through molecular reconstruction, such as Sleeping Beauty (SB). The transposons such as SB and Mos1 have been widely used as gene transfer vectors in the fields of transgenosis, gene trapping and gene therapy. In this review, we summarize the structure, classification, distributions, transposition mechanism and excavations of active members of Tc1/Mariner as well as its application in the fields of transgenesis, gene trapping and gene therapy.