Based on the similarities and complementarities between anthropology and nursing, the nursing anthropology as a new cross-discipline has been produced. Anthropology has been applied in nursing at the early period of 20C, then it is widely used in nursing education and nursing research.The most representative examples are development of transcultural nursing theory and establishment of transcultural nursing associations/societies. In China, anthropology can be applied to nursing with four perspectives of biosocial, transcultural, politico-economic, and daily-life ethnography. Specifically, transcultural nursing and ethno-nursing can be used to enrich nursing anthropology research, thus to reach the target of holistic and high-quality care.