The pulsed LD rangefinder has many characteristics, such as simple construction, small size, light weight and so on. It has some advantages in applications of short and middle range measurement. At present, the maximum measurement range is about 1 km, and the minimum resolution is about several centimeters. The research on pulsed LD rangefinder started in 1960's and in the middle of 1980's a series of key techniques had been solved. In the midde of \{1990's\} some kinds of product had been developed. It can be expected that in near future the number of the product will increase rapidly in very wide areas. In this paper, the development and application of pulsed LD rangefinder around the world are presented, and several typical applications are demonstrated.