The image hall is a kind of cultural phenomenon widely existed in traditional China, yet studies of it seem to be scant. It originates from image used on the occasion of ancestor worship, which sprouted from the Warring States period, formed in the Han dynasty, and got widespread in the Northern and Southern dynasties promoted by Buddhist custom. The image hall was formally named in the Tang dynasty, and can be divided into three kinds of the family one, the memorial one, and the religious one. After the chaos caused by war in the Five Dynasties, the system of ancestral hall in the Tang dynasty got ruined, and the image hall gradually replaced the family temple to hold family ceremony in the Song dynasty. Yet during the spontaneous formation and evolution of image hall, there emerged much confusion on family identity, worship object, regulations and so on. Then Zhu Xi vigorously promoted the ancestral hall, recovered patriarchal clan system, and achieved success. Since the Ming-Qing period, the image hall became a historical concept, and degraded into a component of the ancestral hall. Today, the tradition of image worship is widely distributed north of the Yangtze River, and can be rarely seen south of the Yangtze River, reflecting the difference that the north area is more affected by the culture of Northern Song dynasty, while the south area is more affected by the Southern Song. Besides, immigration and economic condition also have effect on this phenomenon.