Lidar has the advantages of long detection distance, high detection accuracy, high temporal and spatial resolution, and diverse detection parameters, which is an important method for atmospheric detection. Compared with the lidar working at visible wavelength, 1.5 μm atmospheric detection lidar has unique advantages, including eye-safe, all-fiber structure, able to penetrate clouds and fog, and 24 hour continuous detection. In 2015, the world's first single-photon frequency up-conversion aerosol detection lidar was born, achieving continuous detection of aerosol distribution with high spatial and temporal resolution at a distance of 6 km. The representative development of 1.5 μm atmospheric detection lidar in recent years was introduced. In terms of detection methods, direct detection lidar and coherent detection lidar were introduced respectively. Direct detection lidar includes single-photon frequency up-conversion aerosol detection lidar, single-photon frequency up-conversion wind measurement lidar, superconducting dual-frequency wind measurement lidar, superconducting polarization lidar, multimode fiber-coupled single-photon cloud detection lidar and single-photon sensitivity free-space distributed spectral detection lidar. Coherent lidar includes the polarization detection coherent lidar, Golay coding coherent wind lidar and the atmospheric multi-parameter detection coherent lidar. The detection targets of these lidars include atmospheric aerosol (cloud), visibility, polarization, wind profile, gas concentration, precipitation (raindrop size distribution), etc.. Some of them have the ability to detect multiple parameters simultaneously.