Polymeric anion exchange membranes (AEMs) attract increasing attention, because they have prominent roles in various energy and environment-related fields. The most important prerequisite toward high performance AEMs is to search for an appropriate base polymeric material, which should be chemically stable and easily handled for fabricating AEMs. Poly(2,6-dimethyl-1,4-phenylene oxide) (PPO) is considered to be a promising candidate since it enables versatile routes to obtain high performance AEMs. Furthermore, the properties of these AEMs can be feasibly adjusted and controlled to meet various application requirements. In this review, recent advances in PPO based AEMs are comprehensively presented. Herein, we highlight the strategies used for designing PPO based AEMs and hope to provide promising principles, concepts, and routes into the synthesis of other polymer based AEMs.