"Symmetric Varieties" is a specialized book that deals with the theory of homogeneous symmetric varieties, which are defined as quotients of a semisimple algebraic group G by a subgroup H. This publication particularly examines complete symmetric varieties, which are considered smooth equivariant compactifications of G/H. The authors, Chirivì and Maffei, have proven the surjectivity of the multiplication of sections of two globally generated line bundles on a wonderful symmetric variety. The book also addresses the problem concerning complete toroidal symmetric varieties and reduces it to the corresponding problem in the associated toric variety. Another focus is on the classification of Fano symmetric varieties, especially the toroidal Fano complete symmetric varieties of rank 2 and the Fano complete symmetric varieties of rank 3, which can be obtained through a sequence of blow-ups along G-stable subvarieties from the wonderful variety.