Abstract: According to the Cambridge Dictionaries Online, a symbol is a sign, shape, or object that is used to represent something else. Symbol recognition is a subfield of general pattern recognition problems that focuses on identifying, detecting, and recognizing symbols in technical drawings, maps, or miscellaneous documents such as logos and musical scores. This chapter aims at providing the reader an overview of the different existing ways of describing and recognizing symbols and how the field has evolved to attain a certain degree of maturity.