Attempts to standardize the rules of archival description began at the end of the 19th century thanks to the acceptance of summary descriptions in finding aids. Earlier aids often contained individual descriptions of smaller archival units with key data, while later aids were created by following certain rules for describing larger units with data ranging from the general to the specific, which needed to be standardized within archival finding aid systems. This thesis aims to provide an overview of the most important archival description standards in order to explain the background and historical development of rules, methods, and related concepts as well as the reasons why the classic finding aid system does not meet today's needs and expectations. Analysed are the Dutch manual, T. R. Schellenberg’s approach to description, the national standards of the UK, the USA, Canada, Croatian ordinances on record keeping in archives that determine the rules of description and the international standards, ISAD(G), ISAAR(CPF), ISDF, ISDIAH, EAD and the latest two-part standard Records in Contexts, which, through its approach directed towards digital archival material, seeks to expand the traditional understanding of description based on archival principles and a hierarchically organized presentation of the archival fonds.