Porous $LiAlO_2$ with small pores was prepared by hydrolysis and gelation of lithium iso-propoxide and aluminum iso-propoxide. The surface area of the prepared gel was 118㎡/g. The prepared gel was directly transformed to $\gamma-LiAlO_2$ almost completely sintered at 750℃ for six hours. Peaks of $\gamma-LiAlO_2$ in the X-ray diffraction pattern, however, began to appear when sintered at 400℃ for six hours. At higher temperature(900℃) and longer sintering time(33 hours), the prepared gel transformed to $LiAl_5O_8$. This seemed to result from the vaporization of lithium at a high sintering temperature. For the purpose of comparison, lithium aluminate powders were also prepared by solid-state reactions. In the solid-state reaction, lithium salts used were lithium acetate, lithium benzoate, lithium carbonate, lithium formate and lithium hydroxide, and a high-surface-area $\gamma-Al_2O_3$ was used. The sintered gel had higher surface area than any of the powders prepared by solid-state reactions. X-ray diffraction analysis showed that sintered gels and powders were mainly $\gamma-LiAlO_2$. Drying control chemical additives($N_3N$-dimethylformamide, oxalic acid and formamide) were also studied to prevent the gel from cracking. In the drying control chemical additives, $N_3N$-dimethylformamide was most effective, and there were no cracks occurring when the gel dried. The SEM pictures showed that the sintered gel, after grinding, had $0.1-0.2 μm particle size and the powder prepared using lithium benzoate had 1 μm particle size and hexagonal plate shape.