Abstract: The strong motion data provide the input for the engineering seismic research. How to select the appropriate records is an important problem in the field of earthquake engineering. This paper introduces and summarizes 6 commonly used global databases, which were provided by PEER, USGS and COSMOS in the United States, K-NET and KiK-net in Japan, ITACA in Italy, TR-NSMN in Turkey, and GeoNet in New Zealand. This paper introduces background and purpose, history and characteristics of these databases. By comparing the distribution of stations and data, we divide the databases into two groups: global database and regional database. PEER, COSMOS databases are classified as global database, whereas others are regional databases. In addition, according to the time distribution of earthquake parameters and other provided parameters, we decide the application scope of the different database in order to provide a reference for selecting the appropriate database for different directions of scientific research and engineering applications.