AbstractThe chemical reactivity of cyclobutanones and cyclobutenones is considerably different from that of cyclic ketones with larger rings; this is due to their ring strain of ca. 25 kcal/mol. Detailed knowledge regarding the influence of this ring strain on regio‐, chemo‐ and stereoselective transformations of four‐membered ring ketones is of particular importance. While several reactions, such as the Baeyer–Villiger reaction, the Beckmann and Favorskii rearrangements andcine‐substitution often proceed in a manner specific to four‐membered rings, other reactions such as the facile ring‐opening by nucleophiles, the rearrangement to tropolones, the thermal [2+2]‐cycloreversion, the isomerization to vinylketenes and the photochemical formation of oxacarbenes are rather specific to cyclobutanones and cyclobutenones. The remarkable selectivity and the excellent yields of such transformations, which are favored or caused by ring strain as the inherent driving force, offer the synthetic chemist fascinating possibilities for the development of new strategies for the synthesis of natural products and biologically a