Developments in sensor technology, data storage and an ever-expanding market for spatial data have led to a bewildering array of remote sensing products. This paper aims to provide an overview of the state-of-the-art in remote sensing for coral reef management. We focus initially on the attributes of coral reefs that can be measured, generally at several metres to submetre scales using remote sensing. We then provide an overview of the physical environmental variables that can be remotely sensed. The latter are often measured using pixel sizes of kilometres or larger, but observations are taken routinely enabling time series climatologies to be established with maximum temporal resolutions ranging from hours to days, depending on the environmental parameter being measured. Most of the information pertinent to this review is presented in tables and text is only used to elaborate on specific caveats or exceptions.