Scientific Trends, Characterization, and Future Directions of Regional Development Research Based on a Bibliometric Analysis

To understand the research trends and areas of focus of regional development, this study conducted bibliometric research based on the Science Citation Index Expanded and Social Science Citation Index databases. The study presents a comprehensive overview of the field of regional development research by exploring its annual output, journals, countries, institutions, temporal keyword trends, citations, and high-impact authors. The countries that had the greatest academic impact were the United Kingdom and United States, and the University of California, Los Angeles, was the institution that had the highest relative citation impact. The popular key words changed from those related to industry to those related to mechanisms and regulation. Later, China emerged as a popular topic, after which integrated research gained prominence. Three main research directions emerged: enterprise and theoretical studies on regional development, China’s regional development, and the dynamic mechanism of regional development.