Abstract. This paper is a review of the present status of studies relating to occurrence of deterministic chaos and its characterization in one-dimensional maps. As our primary aim is to introduce the nonspecialists into this fascinating world of chaos we start from very elementary concepts and give sufficient arguments for clarity of ideas. The two main scenarios during onset of chaos viz. the period doubling and intermittency are dealt with in detail. Although the logistic map is often discussed by way of illustration, a few more interesting maps are mentioned towards the end.