Abstract
Rural areas play an important role in global sustainable development. In recent years, however, rural development has experienced global crises, such as issues in public education, health care, roads, water and sanitation, along with environmental pollution and a lack of natural resources. It is therefore important to promote rural revitalization in the process of modernization. To objectively reveal the current research status in the field of rural revitalization, we analyzed relevant publications in the Web of Science from 1991 to 2021. The results are as follows: (1) In the past 30 years, the number of publications on rural vitalization has increased, and the period from 1991 to 2021 can be divided into three stages, the initial period (1991-2004), the development period (2005-2016), and the high-yield period (2017-2021). (2) Research on rural revitalization covered 60 countries or regions around the world, involving a total of 3099 authors. China, the United States, and Canada published most of the articles. (3) High-frequency keywords were migration, management, and urbanization, indicating that scientists considered the role of sustainable urban and rural development, policy formulation, and urbanization. We highlight that for the development of the field of rural vitalization, scientists need to further strengthen theoretical research, fully absorb the development achievements of advanced countries and regions, understand the laws and trends of urban and rural development in their own countries, and explore new paths to achieve rural vitalization.