Swirling, vortex and cyclonic flows are widely used in a wide range of different applications in the aerospace, power, energy chemical and other industries. They are used for many different purposes, including flame stabilisation, atomisers, centrifugal separation/or suspension of particles in high velocity flows, mixing processes, as fluidic valves especially for the nuclear industry. Uses differ widely but there is a common theme of using an inlet flow to couple with flow in a cylindrical chamber to generate swirling, vortex or cyclonic flow. Although there has been much recent work in specific areas looking at specific flows and applications there has been little work that looks both at the generics of the coupling between the inlet non swirling flow and that generated in the cylindrical chamber, as well as the advantages/disadvantages of the various methods by which the swirling flow is generated. This can be extremely important for many applications where the generation of these flows is attended by extremely significant pressure drop which can place severe demands on fans, compressors etc. There are also often severe space constraints, necessitating engineering compromises. However a substantial body of literature exists for different systems which give results which appear to have a good level of general applicability. This paper reviews some of this literature and relates it to various combustors and other devices to illustrate the commonalty of findings despite vast differences in configuration.