Abstract: [Objective] To analyze the state of grassland ecological protection research in China and investigate the most recent developments in order to provide suggestions and references for future study. [Method] Using the China National Knowledge Infrastructure （CNKI） database as the data retrieval source, CiteSpace software was employed to quantify the annual publication volume, author, organization, and keyword of 315 valid sample documents from the year of 1992 to 2021. [Result] Since the year of 2007, the number of annual publications in the field of grassland ecological protection in China has steadily increased, peaking in the year of 2009. Following then, the quantity of relevant documents reduced, but remained quite high. NING You-liang and HE You-jun are high-yield authors in the sector.The network of team cooperation has taken shape. LIU Tian-ming's team cooperates closely with other teams. There had been lots of cooperation among institutions, but only limited to certain regions and disciplines, deep cooperative relationships has not formed. At present, the research hotspots in the field of grassland ecological protection in China are primarily focused on grassland ecological protection subsidy and reward policy, grassland animal husbandry, grassland sustainable development and so on. [Conclusion] In China, grassland ecological protection research has yielded a wealth of information. Future study should focus more on grassland ecological restoration and management, as well as grassland ecological protection subsidy and reward policy.

Key words: grassland ecological protection, grassland ecological subsidy and reward policy, bibliometric analysis method, CiteSpace, visualization