The LiMnPO4/C composite material was synthesized via a sol-gel method based on citric acid.The X-ray diffraction (XRD), scanning electron microscope (SEM) and electrochemical performance tests were adopted to characterize the properties of LiMnPO4/C.The XRD studies show that the pure olivine phase LiMnPO4 can be obtained at a low temperature of 500 ℃.The SEM images illustrates that citric acid used as the chelating reagent and carbon source can restraint the particle size of LiMnPO4/C well.The LiMnPO4/C sample synthesized at 500 ℃ for 10 h performs the highest initial discharge capacity of 122.6 mAh/g, retaining 112.4 mAh/g over 30 cycles, at 0.05C rate.The citric acid based sol-gel method is favor to synthesize the high electrochemical performance of LiMnPO4/C.