Dehydrobenzoannulenes have accrued great interest due to their potential uses such as hosts for binding guest molecules and precursors to fullerenes and other carbon‐rich materials, as well as their unique properties such as conductivity or superconductivity and nonlinear optical effects. These systems have seen numerous synthetic strategies employed in their construction over the past 50 years. As alkyne chemistry has developed more recently, annulene networks with greater complexity have been possible and the field has seen a vast resurgence. This article gives an account of synthetic methods developed for the preparation of annulenic systems and describes some of the interesting observed properties. (© Wiley‐VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, 69451 Weinheim, Germany, 2003)