The invention provides a nanometer metal oxide and a preparation method thereof, and belongs to the fields of preparation technologies of nanometer inorganic compound photocatalysis materials and dyes. A halide or inorganic salt containing metal ions is selected as a metal ion source, a complexing agent, sucrose, glucose, acrylamide, bisacrylamide, agar, gelatin and carboxymethyl cellulose are selected as gel raw materials, the metal ions are uniformly dispersed, an industrial irradiation device is used to irradiate a raw material solution or emulsion in order to form a gel with a spatial network structure, the nanometer metal oxide is prepared through later grinding and sintering technologies, and the nanometer metal oxide can be used as an excellent photocatalyst or dye. The preparation method has the advantages of simplicity, stable process, strong operability, great reduction of the use amount of the gel raw materials, no need of heating, no need of special treatment of the raw materials, and realization of large batch production by using the industrial irradiation device.