Polarization hierarchy and system operating architecture is one of the key technologies for Polarimetric Synthetic Aperture Radar (PolSAR) system design. In this paper the polarization hierarchies of PolSAR, including Single-Polarization radar, Dual-Polarization radar, Full-Polarization radar, and Compact Polarization radar, are discussed. In addition, the system operating architectures such as Polarization Timedivision multiplexing pulse, Polarization Frequency-division multiplexing pulse, Polarization Code-division multiplexing pulse and Polarization Space-division in Azimuth are presented more in detail.