Traditional village protection and sustainable development: Knowledge graph construction and hotspot evolution

Traditional villages, as crucial carriers of cultural landscapes and socioecological systems, are garnering increasing attention in the context of the global urban-rural transformation and sustainable development agenda. While recent research on the preservation and sustainable development of traditional villages has demonstrated a multidimensional and interdisciplinary development trend, spanning cultural landscape governance, community engagement, ecological knowledge integration, and digital transformation, a systematic review of the field's development trajectory and research hotspots remains insufficient. This paper employs bibliometric methods, using the Web of Science Core Collection database as a data source, to systematically review the literature on the preservation and sustainable development of traditional villages from 2005 to 2025. Using VOSviewer and Bibliometrix tools, we visualize and cluster the publication trends, country and institution distribution, keyword co-occurrence networks, and thematic evolution paths. Results indicate that research in this field has experienced exponential growth over the past two decades, with China being the primary knowledge producer, accounting for over 75 % of the total. High-impact journals include Sustainability, Land, and Heritage Science. Research topics focus on five major areas: ''Spatial Pattern and Tourism Transformation,'' ''Land Use and Policy Intervention,'' ''Cultural Landscape and Value System,'' ''Community Participation and Governance Resilience,'' and ''Rural Tourism and Participatory Development.'' High-frequency keywords show that ''rural revitalization,'' ''sustainable development,'' ''cultural heritage,'' and ''rural tourism'' are gradually becoming core topics. The research paradigm has also shifted from traditional material protection to system governance and multi-subject coordination mechanisms, with ''cultural rural revitalization,'' ''ecological resilience,'' and ''digital heritage management'' becoming emerging growth points. This study constructed a knowledge map and thematic evolution framework for this field, identifying current hot spots and potential breakthroughs, and providing new theoretical perspectives and practical guidance for subsequent research.