Although chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) has a public health importance similar to asthma, it has received less attention. The first guideline on the management of COPD was released in 1987 by the American Thoracic Society. In 1992 the Canadian Thoracic Society released its guidelines. In 1995 the European Respiratory Society and the Thoracic Society of Australia and New Zealand released their guidelines and the American Thoracic Society updated and expand its COPD guidelines. All these documents were followed in 1997 by the guidelines developed by the British Thoracic Society. These COPD guidelines show many similarities but also have some interesting differences. The aim of this paper is to review these similarities and discrepancies. Like all guidelines, COPD guidelines suffer from the limited amount of evidence-based medicine supporting them, a limitation that, however, provides a strong stimulus for further research.