Visualization and Bibliometric Analysis: Research on Third Front Construction in China (2003-2023)

China's Third Front Construction was initiated in the mid-1960s, as a significant decision made by the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China (CPC) and Chairman Mao Zedong. In this paper, Citespace visualization software was employed to analyze 356 relevant literature sources retrieved from the China Knowledge Network (CNKI) database, in order to visualize and analyze the research on China's Third Front Construction from 2003 to 2023. The paper systematically analyzes five aspects of research on China's Third Front Construction: publications, authors, issuing institutions, highly cited papers, and keywords. Based on this analysis, a knowledge graph of the Third Front Construction research is drawn. The results show that: 1. The development of Third Front Construction research from 2003 to 2023 can be divided into three phases: the development period (2003-2017), the outbreak period (2017-2021), and the sustained period (2021-2023). 2. At present, the research on China's Third Front Construction has formed a large number of cooperative teams, but the relationship between the cooperative teams generally shows a "large decentralized, small centralized" pattern, and most of the authors are in an independent mode. 3. The high-yield areas of research on China's Third Front Construction are mainly concentrated in East China, North China, and Southwest China. 4. The highly cited papers on China's Third Front Construction are mainly completed in the form of cooperation, and in general, the citation frequency of the co-authored papers is higher than that of the sole-authored papers. 5. The research hotspots of China's Third Front Construction mainly focus on the "Third Front Construction", "Third Front enterprises", "industrial structure", "industrialization" and "oral history", etc. The aim of this paper is to explore the cutting-edge topics and future trends in this field in China, as well as to provide suggestions for further research on China's Third Front Construction.