Abstract: In order to understand the research progress and trend of rhizosphere priming effect(RPE), 216 research papers on RPE in Web of Science core collection database were used as data sources. The number of published papers, total/average citation frequency, countries, institutions and authors were analyzed by CiteSpace and VOS viewer. The results showed that the research on RPE could be divided into three stages: the preliminary stage (1984-1995), stable development stage (1996-2014) and rapid growth stage (2015-2022). The USA has the largest total number of publications, the highest intermediary centrality and the largest international influence. The average annual number of publications of China has climbed to the first after 2018, but ranking the third in the international influence by following Germany. At present, Cheng W and Kuzyakov Y are the main core authors. Chinese Academy of Sciences has the largest number of publications. The research hotspots mainly focus on the quantitative methods, influencing factors and regulatory mechanisms of RPE, and most of them are completed by plant seedlings and indoor potted conditions. Therefore, it is urgent to expand the indoor research to the in-situ field conditions, comprehensively consider the impact of global climate change, improve the CO₂ isotope tracing technique and capture method, strengthen the research on the variation of RPE among adult tree species, optimize the parameters of Earth-System model, and then accurately estimate the response of terrestrial ecosystem carbon cycle to climate change.