The winter stationary waves in the Northern Hemisphere are characterized by three basic features in their structure: A westward tilt with height in midlatitudes, an abrupt change in the upper-level longitudinal phase at about 30°N, and a transition from trapped waves at low latitudes to vertically propagating waves at high latitudes. In contrast, the summer stationary waves are characterized by a vertical phase reversal at low latitudes, a transition zone between 40°-55°N, and a vertically uniform structure in the polar region. During the 1950-1970s, topography, diabatic heating, and a combination of both were used as basic forcings to simulate the midlatitude winter stationary waves. In the 1970-80s, the summer stationary waves in the tropics were depicted by streamfunction and velocity potential plots. From the 1990s on, the general circulation model was linearized and used to simulate stationary waves for both winter and summers. The linearized model uses the specified topography, diabatic heating, transient and nonlinear effects as forcings. The basic structure of stationary waves was successfully simulated to a good extent, but the basic structure and dynamics transition from the tropics to higher latitude were not well explained. This approach was also used to explore the monsoon dynamics. Since his time at Michigan, Aksel Wiin-Nislsen had always been interested in wave dynamics and atmospheric energetics. He suggested that the atmospheric general circulation should be maintained by diabatic heating through divergent circulation. This basic concept was adopted to explore the dynamics of stationary waves in terms of the maintenance of divergent circulation by diabatic heating, and the maintenance of rotational circulation by its interaction with the potential function. Both the velocity potential and streamfunction can be universally used to depict the atmospheric circulation in both the tropics and higher latitudes. Therefore the maintenance mechanism of both the velocity potential and streamfunction was used to explore the basic dynamics and structure of both winter and summer stationary waves in the Northern Hemisphere. During the winter, the basic dynamics of stationary waves belong to the Sverdrup regime south of 30°N, and the Rossby wave regime north of 30°N. The abrupt change in the upper-level longitudinal phase of stationary waves at this latitude is attributed to this sudden change of basic dynamics. The structure of summer stationary waves exhibit a transition zone between 40°N and 55°N, where the dynamics of the stationary waves are primarily dictated by the Rossby regime. In contrast, the dynamics of waves south of this transition zone belong to the Sverdrup regime, and waves north of the transition zone belong to the subarctic regime. Nevertheless, the observed structure of stationary waves in both winter and summer can be well constructed in terms of the dynamics identified above. Findings of the detailed structure and dynamics of stationary waves provide a more complete basis to validate climate simulations and to search for the cause of interannual variation in the climate system.