This article gives a review of the formulation of fractional step-method of characteristics (FSMoC) for solving shallow-water type equations. The formulation is demonstrated by a shallow-water type equation with sources of force, arbitrary bottom topography and friction force. The fractional step-method (FS) splits the multidimensional shallow-water type equations into sequential augmented one-dimensional problems (PDEs or ODEs). Among the sequential problems, the advection phases are solved by the method of characteristics (MoC) and the non-advection phases are solved either by analytical methods or the Runge-Kutta method. In MoC, the one-dimensional PDEs are transformed to ordinary differential equations using Riemann invariants, which should be interpolated at each time step since the characteristic curves do not fall on a grid system. The applicability of the prescribed formulation is demonstrated by numerical results or strengthened by the studies in literature.