Objective/Meaning  The sustainable livelihood of rural households is closely related to the issue of “agriculture, rural areas and farmers”. Sorting out the research hotspots and trends in this field in China is helpful to summarize the successful experience of the rural households’ livelihood and the agricultural development in China in the past 20 years, so as to provide suggestions for better implementing the rural revitalization strategy.

  Methods/Procedures  Based on the relevant literature retrieved from the CNKI database during the years from 2000 to 2022 (up to March 31, 2022), the CiteSpace visualization software was used to analyze the changes and current situation of the research on agricultural sustainable livelihood in China, so as to reflect the changes of the sustainable livelihoods of rural households in China.

  Results/Conclusions  During the years from 2000 to 2022, the number of papers in the study has been growing; the research involved the disciplines which mainly focused on the agricultural economy, public management and sociology; and the research keywords had high centrality, forming 11 clusters and 3 research topics. According to different research hotspots, these 20 years could be roughly divided into three periods, namely, the period of developing agricultural production, the period of ecological agriculture, the period of poverty alleviation and the period of rural revitalization. By taking a comprehensive view of the research process in the past 20 years, the research results in this field were abundant but lack of theoretical innovation and dynamic macro research on the livelihood of rural households. Therefore, in the future, the theoretical innovation and dynamic macro research should be strengthened, and the achievements in the ecological agriculture and poverty alleviation should be consolidated to contribute to the rural revitalization strategy.