Pull-apart basins are special extensional structures formed at the linkage zones of en echelon strike-slip fault systems. They preserve important records of tectonic activity and evolution within strike-slip fault systems, therefore, serving as key windows for studying strike-slip faulting. This study summarizes geometrical characteristics and tectonic evolution of pull-apart basins and concludes that the geometric evolution of a pull-apart basin is controlled by the geometry of the initial master strike-slip faults. Underlapping configuration of the initial master faults will undergo the complete evolutionary sequence (spindle-shaped, lazy Z/S-shaped, rhomboidal-shaped, elongated rhomboidal-shaped) whereas overlapping configuration directly forms rhomboidal or elongated rhomboidal basins. The main factors influencing the characteristics and tectonic evolution of a pull-apart basin include the number of initial strike-slip faults (two or multiple), initial strike-slip geometry (fault separation and fault overlap, underlapping or overlapping configuration), initial strike-slip kinematics (pure strike-slip, transtension, or transpression), basement characteristics (thickness of brittle crust, salt structures in the basement, etc.), and its evolution stages. This study also introduces crack propagation and basin development of pure strike-slip, transtensional, and composite pull-apart basins, presents typical natural examples such as the Dead Sea basin and pull-apart basins in the Marmara Sea, and provides a method to deduce the minimum strike-slip displacement and the starting age of active pull-apart basins and the corresponding strike-slip faults based on relative extension ε^*_x (strike-slip offset divided by fault separation) and slip rate of the strike-slip fault. Current understanding of basin depocenter evolution, rift shoulder uplift, and extinction mechanisms of pull-apart basins remains inadequate. Their roles in major earthquake nucleation and surface rupture propagation require further investigation. The integrated application of field investigations, compilation of field examples, physical modeling, and numerical simulations shows potential to address these problems.