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The current trend in the miniaturization of electronic devices has driven the investigation into many nanostructured materials. The ferroelectric material barium titanate (BaTiO 3 ) has garnered considerable attention over the past decade owing to its excellent dielectric and ferroelectric properties. This has led to significant progress in synthetic techniques that yield high quality BaTiO 3 nanocrystals (NCs) with well-defined morphologies ( e.g. , nanoparticles, nanorods, nanocubes and nanowires) and controlled crystal phases ( e.g. , cubic, tetragonal and multi-phase). The ability to produce nanoscale BaTiO 3 with controlled properties enables theoretical and experimental studies on the intriguing yet complex dielectric properties of individual BaTiO 3 NCs as well as BaTiO 3 /polymer nanocomposites. Compared with polymer-free individual BaTiO 3 NCs, BaTiO 3 /polymer nanocomposites possess several advantages. The polymeric component enables simple solution processibility, high breakdown strength and light weight for device scalability. The BaTiO 3 component enables a high dielectric constant. In this review, we highlight recent advances in the synthesis of high-quality BaTiO 3 NCs via a variety of chemical approaches including organometallic, solvothermal/hydrothermal, templating, molten salt, and sol–gel methods. We also summarize the dielectric and ferroelectric properties of individual BaTiO 3 NCs and devices based on BaTiO 3 NCs via theoretical modeling and experimental piezoresponse force microscopy (PFM) studies. In addition, viable synthetic strategies for novel BaTiO 3 /polymer nanocomposites and their structure–composition–performance relationship are discussed. Lastly, a perspective on the future direction of nanostructured BaTiO 3 -based materials is presented.