Three-phase inverse fluidized bed has been widely adopted with its increasing demand in the fields of bioreactor, fermentation process, wastewater treatment process, absorption and adsorption processes, where the fluidized or suspended particles are small or lower density comparing with that of continuous liquid phase, since the particles are frequently substrate, contacting medium or catalyst carrier. However, there has been little attention on the three-phase inverse fluidized beds even on the hydrodynamics. Needless to say, the information on the hydrodynamics and transport phenomena such as heat and mass transfer in the inverse fluidized beds has been essential for the operation, design and scale-up of various reactors and processes which are employing the three-phase inverse beds. In the present article, thus, the information on the three-phase inverse fluidized beds has been summarized and reorganized to suggest a pre-requisite knowledge for the field work in a sense of engineering point of view. The article is composed of three parts; hydrodynamics, heat and mass transfer characteristics of three-phase inverse fluidized beds. Effects of operating variables on the phase holdup, bubble properties and particle fluctuating frequency and dispersion were discussed in the section of hydrodynamics; effects of operating variables on the heat transfer coefficient and on the heat transfer model were discussed in the section of heat transfer characteristics ; and in the section of mass transfer characteristics, effects of operating variables on the liquid axial dispersion and volumetric liquid phase mass transfer coefficient were examined. In each section, correlations to predict the hydrodynamic characteristics such as minimum fluidization velocity, phase holdup, bubble properties and particle fluctuating frequency and dispersion and heat and mass transfer coefficients were suggested. And finally suggestions have been made for the future study for the application of three-phase inverse fluidized bed in several available fields to meet the increasing demands of this system.