Acute kidney injury (AKI) is a common clinical critical illness, and ischemic kidney injury is the main type. The mortality rate of ischemic kidney injury is high, because the efficacy of treatment is limited due to symptomatic and supportive treatment. Establishing a reliable animal model of ischemic AKI is an important prerequisite for conducting research on physiological, pathological and pharmacological researches, so as to explore effective prevention methods and strategies. In recent years, the establishment methods of animal models of ischemic AKI have been continuously improved. The article summarizes the common methods and model characteristics of animal models of ischemic AKI in order to provide a reference for researchers to choose a reasonable modeling method.