A series of CuO/CeO 2 catalysts were prepared through a two-step process: (1) CeO 2 supports were firstly prepared by precipitation (P), hydrothermal (HT) and solgel (SG) methods, respectively; and (2) CuO was deposited on the above CeO 2 supports by deposition-precipitation method. The as-synthesized CeO 2 supports and CuO/CeO 2 catalysts were characterized by N 2 -physisorption, XRD, XPS, Raman, and H 2 -TPR. The CuO/CeO 2 catalysts were examined with respect to their catalytic activity for the water-gas shift reaction, and their catalytic activities are ranked as: CuO/CeO 2 -P [ CuO/CeO 2 -HT [ CuO/CeO 2 -SG. The results suggest that the CeO 2 prepared by precipitation (i.e., CeO 2 -P-300) has the best thermal stability and the most amounts of surface oxygen vacancies, which make the corresponding CuO/CeO 2 -P catalyst present the largest pore volume, the smallest crystal size of CuO, the highest microstrain (i.e., the highest surface energy) and the most amounts of active sites (i.e., the moderate copper oxide (crystalline) interacted with surface oxygen vacancies of ceria). Therefore, the catalytic activity of CuO/ CeO 2 catalysts, in nature, depends on the thermal stability and the number of surface oxygen vacancies of the CeO 2 supports previously prepared by different methods.