Abstract: The main damage reasons resulting in poor seismic performance of the high-pile-supported wharves are clarified by examining extensive documented case histories of the damaged pile-supported wharves. The state of the art of the research on the pile-supported wharves, from the aspects of the seismic design methods, soil-pile interaction, seismic performance of the batter piles and the pile-deck connections, is presented, and the application of the findings from the seismic design codes for the pile-supported wharves is summarized, and the deficiencies in the studies and the problems need to be further studied are pointed out in this paper. Some suggestions are made as to how to absorb foreign research results about the seismic research on the high-pile-supported wharves and revise the seismic design codes for the pile-supported wharves. This paper is the first part of a series of papers, which mainly presents the earthquake damage, failure behavior of the pile-supported wharves and seismic design methods for the pile-supported wharves. Research results show that the design method based on displacement is the main development direction of the seismic design for the pile-supported wharves abroad, therefore, our country should carry out related seismic researches and revise the seismic design codes for the pile-supported wharves from that based on the force to that based on the displacement.