The research and development of concepts and methodologies for Historical Urban Landscape in China constitute an essential response to the challenges of preserving the integrity and authenticity of historic towns while fostering their sustainable development amid rapid urbanization. As a signifi cant contributor and practitioner in developing the concepts and methodologies, China has established a comprehensive, multidimensional knowledge system over the past two decades. To systematically analyze the research context and structural characteristics within this domain, this paper employs the CiteSpace bibliometric tool. It comprehensively uses functions such as keyword co-occurrence, time-series mapping and cluster analysis to perform a visual bibliometric analysis of the literature related to ‘Historical Urban Landscape’ in the CNKI database from 2005 to 2025. The study summarizes the fi eld’s development context, prevailing topics, and emerging trends. The study reveals that the development of historical urban landscape in China has gone through three stages: the interpretation of theoretical connotations and their frameworks; the deepening of practices and the exploration of theoretical integration; and the transformation of paradigms driven by national strategies. A core proposition that the academic community has been continuously exploring is to eff ectively balance the protection of heritage authenticity and integrity with socio-economic development, spatial function renewal, and improvement of residents’ lives. Meanwhile, current research is rapidly expanding towards in-depth application of technologies and innovation in governance models. This paper aims to provide researchers with an effi cient “academic coordinate” and off er directional references and technical support for subsequent theoretical deepening and protection practices.