The concept of child-friendliness has garnered widespread attention in global urban governance, and theoretical research and policy practice have gradually evolved and improved. However, the protection of space rights and interests has long lagged behind urban development, facing challenges including the neglect of children’s needs in spatial design, uneven resource allocation, and a lack of participatory mechanisms. Although research on child-friendly cities has shown a multidisciplinary trend, certain issues persist, including fragmented understandings of their connotations, outdated theoretical research, and ambiguous mechanisms of subject interaction. It is imperative to systematically organize the development within this fi eld. Using the CNKI and Web of Science databases, the core disciplines in the research fi eld were identifi ed based on the frequency and representativeness of the literature, and the “society - space - health” dimension was screened and analyzed. Firstly, the development process and evolutionary characteristics of child-friendly city research were identifi ed, and the “goal - action - evaluation” research system was constructed. Secondly, based on a comprehensive analysis of the backgrounds of multiple disciplines, this paper examines the conceptual meaning and evolution, and summarizes the knowledge pedigree of multidisciplinary research fi elds along the dimensions of spatial intervention focus, research content, research theory, and research methods. Finally, the dynamic closed-loop reconstruction path of multidisciplinary “mechanism analysis - space translation - effi ciency verifi cation” and the multi-level development framework of practical discipline “city - architecture - landscape” are proposed. Systematically integrating the research content of child-friendly cities compensates for the shortcomings of single-discipline research, provides a theoretical map and methodological support for multidisciplinary mutual learning and collaborative innovation, and off ers important enlightenment and planning guidance for the construction practice of child-friendly cities.